Suddenly, I'm not so young...

Before March was even over it already felt like May in Searcy. All of the Arkansans out there know that that means an extremely hot summer is in order. 

I forgot how much I love this time of year. Turning in final projects and papers. Taking the last few tests. Getting to go to club formals, picnics, Pattie Cobb pictures, etc. And of course, Spring Sing! I’m not going to lie, I’ve been doing my best to avoid the giant glittery monster this semester, and I did a pretty good job of it while still maintaining some involvement. I wasn’t avoiding it because I hate Spring Sing (obviously) or because I don’t want to help…it’s just a monster. A monster that came and took all of my creativity with it. But thankfully, it also captured a lot of my creativity. Yesterday at Super Saturday, I had so much fun. I love singing goofy song lyrics and wearing ridiculous outfits. And I love watching other people I know sing goofy lyrics and wear ridiculous outfits! What’s not to love, really?

It makes me feel like a care free college kid again. I think I needed that reminder after this semester. Things have been crazy and I have been putting all sorts of pressure on myself. I’ve separated myself from the things that I love to make room for the things that I have to get done. I’m just grateful to still have friends in my clubs who can remind me how to be fun again. How to do the things that I used to love so much. 

My senior symposium is on Friday afternoon—Good Friday, hopefully an indication that things will go very well. I’m prepared to get this thing over with. I then have four major projects to complete before finals week. I’m not worried, in fact I just feel ready to take care of business. I’m ready for the carefree of my last undergraduate summer! 

So I’m taking a Writing Fiction class this semester. I love it. The coursework is intense, but fun and oddly rewarding. Each student is required to write 3 short stories throughout the semester and have a student led “workshop” on each one. It creates an environment for growth and perspective.

My first short story came very organically to me. I wrote about a young woman named Marianne who had recently lost her father to pancreatic cancer a few months before and had presently lost her grandfather to a heart attack. The idea was that this father and son died prematurely together because of their relationship. After this woman’s father died, her grandfather realized the horrible mistake he had made of not loving his son. Marianne returns to her grandparents’ hometown with her boyfriend to attend the funeral and it is soon revealed that she is pregnant and keeping it from her mother, grandmother, and aunt. Marianne was emotional through most of the story, but through the bigger parts, she seemed to remain shut-off. I was trying to express the conflict of accepting life and death, and the hardship of retaining parental legacies. I enjoyed writing the story and sharing it with my peers. I found the process to be very therapeutic. I love creating characters and experiencing things through them; though I know that I will never be a professional writer.

The strange thing about all of this is that the same week of my workshop in class, I found out that my own grandfather is dying. So now here I am…I have become the character in my story (minus the dead father and pregnancy thing). Life is so weird. I’m not sure what compelled me to write a story about loss, but in a way I suppose I was setting-up the next scene of my life. 

My dad is not taking my grandfather’s dying well, and I feel so bad for him. I don’t want my dad to lose his dad. My grandpa is his best friend (next to my brother), I just hope and pray he is okay. My thoughts have been with my grandfather so much this weekend and last. I feel like the Moore family is falling apart slowly, and I hate it—even though I know there is nothing I can do about it. It’s just life. I will always see my grandfather’s face in my dad and in my brother. And I will always see his blue eyes when I look into a mirror. I will never forget where we came from, and I will never not miss it either. 

Thank You, God, for giving us creative talents. Thank You for giving us crazy emotions that we don’t know how to deal with, and thank You for enabling us to turn them into beautiful things like stories, songs, and paintings. Thank You. 

Hi. My name is Most-Overwhelming-Semester-of-Your-Life, and I’ll be owning you from here on out.

But for realz. I’m in that terrible place that all seniors in college go to. The one where you’re knee-deep in school work and staring your uncertain future in the face. The scary thing about the future is that is never blinks. It just presses itself against you with deep black eyes that seem to know everything, and nothing all at the same time.

I need May to get here, asap. I need this freaking capstone project to get the heck out of town, and for all of my other towering writing assignments and projects to go with it. 

I apologize in advance to everyone for how on edge I may be for the next 3 months. Consider yourselves warned.