It's Always Darkest Before the Dawn

So....

It's the day after Easter and I've decided to take up working out again. I've had some recent inspiration to feel empowered. Not having a job for awhile can make you feel pretty bummed out after awhile. Although I am a glass-half-full-kind of guy, sometimes that glass needs to be filled with something NOT chocolate milk.

In recent events, it is also my little sister's Spring Break and I volunteered to take care of her. My parents were going to send her to camp, but I thought I'd help them save money. She's seven years old and has unlimited amounts of energy. Today I made her read a book, made sure she didn't have too much sugar, took her for a hike in Napa Valley. We even had a jam session to sing some songs that she likes. Have you heard the music seven-year olds are into these days? Cher Lloyd's "Want you back". Ahhh!!!! Why?

We even sat and watch a movie called "Cats & Dogs". It wasn't bad.  Let me tell you, she's a Wonka kid. Y'know like Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Imagine the rudeness of Verruca Salt and the appetite of Augustus Glupe. Don't worry, I reprimand her, but I can only do so much before it feels like the world is going to fall apart. Do I like kids? Well...if you ever hear my response, then you'll know why.  I would make a terrible parent. Enough about this. It was good day. I'm just exhausted. I rest and think about how different life has become.

To my main point...in all of this...do you ever feel like you missed out in life? But not because anyone made you miss out, but because you can't change who you are. I look on my facebook, and I see the fun that people seem to be having in the pictures they post. I think deeply about the friends I made, and the people I never made the time to talk to. I think about all the useless hours I spent studying for that exam. Sometime I feel like I didn't learn anything in school. I made all these friends that will come and go as time goes by, because God only knows I can't keep up with all of them. People will change, and friends get too busy to call their friends.

Something I miss about living in a college town like Austin was the ease of meeting so many people, especially the ladies. In Austin, the girls were not only "smart", they were everywhere. You could simply just walk outside, and talk to a girl walking by. You could maybe go to the gym, or the food courts; the mixers and the study halls. Planning the events and getting the numbers.  My friends and I would go out and be each other's wingman.  Man, do I miss this. Of course, none of us ever took this seriously. It was all just fun and laughs.

You would never take that seriously in college, because you went to school to accomplish something. You went there to obtain a great education which would lead to a career. You didn't bother with the distractions because you focused on your studies. You told yourself that you would work hard in school, because that's what you were there for. You graduate, and you move out of there like you had planned from the start. You never knew exactly where you might go, but you knew you weren't going to stay.

Now I am in a town where none of that is here. You don't have your friends, and you no longer live in a college town with everything you know. You are not a college kid anymore, and you realized that during last semester when conversation topics changed. You don't relate with college kids on the same level as you used to.  If I had to go back and do it all again, I wouldn't have done it differently. Because I couldn't. There's no regret here. Just pure nostalgia. You start to think, could I have gotten more out of college in any other way? Maybe. Maybe not.

What did I learn? I learned that the more and more you learn, you realize that you actually don't know anything at all. And that none of this seems to be in your control. You can't predict the future and you can't know the things you don't know. So you might as well just be glad you learned something, even if it's not what you expected and move forward. Life is good, and life will get better. Remember at times that it's always darkest before the dawn.