Plan for The Life. Version 1.1

There are many of things I want to do with my life. Like most everything I do, it's absolutely necessary that I try to cram as much goodness as possible into each and every second. That's why I sleep with 26 pillow, 2 fans, 2 feather comforters, and one giant stuffed elephants: for maximum dankness. And the occasional visitor. This drive for maximum good -- optimal hedon flow -- is pretty Life consuming and anxiety-producing most of the time, but the fonts of Joy I create are worth the endeavor.

What do I want? I want to work for good. I want to Live the Life I Love. I want to have a family. I want to travel. I want to teach. I want to build a house, commit myself to yoga, eat better, have kids, paint my toe nails and find the time to sing every day. I want to learn to throw pottery, make my children amazing Halloween costumes, sing in public, dance in a field, read fiction, live in France, throw swanky dinner parties, and care for my parents in their old age. I want Love I Can't Live Without, a huge garden full of organic vegetables, and a dog that adores me. It's not the ideas that present the obstacles, but the lack of a plan on how to get there. It's the lack of differentiation between what needs to be done now and what will take preparatory steps to get there that I desperately need. Direction I think the guidance counselor would call it.

I keep a running text document on my desktop that contains the most obsessive-compulsively amazing list of things I need to do in order accomplish my Life. We're talking anywhere from "figure out what I need to graduate" to "shave" and "get goood and drunk." (Or "DUUUUUUUUURNK" as the case may be.) One of the most rewarding features of this To Do List is that it's not on paper. Yet it's always there, fluid and yielding to my rapidly changing schemes and dreams. This allows for the list to morph and grow to encompass my serious addiction to lists. But more importantly, I don't want to box myself in: I can change my plans at any moment. And usually do. It's hell on boys that try to date me. (On another note, why is that they always try but never seem to succeed?)

The only problem is that lately, my life is unstable. I'm unstable. Real unstable. And while that's a whole nother barrel of fish, I will, I WILL get into that at another point. Right now I have another mission that'll help me move pass the uncertainty, while not focusing on the sad. I realized that with the rapid changes in what I want to do, who I want to be, where I want to go, keeping track of the changes of my Master Life Plan of Everything I Want to Do and Accomplish Ever has become rather difficult.

For example, my long standing plan went something like this:
graduate with a degree in sociology
go to graduate school in Austin
get a degree in non-profit business administration
open my own non-profit consulting firm for other non-profits
be a bad ass

Which is pretty non-functional right now. Still valid things that I may do, but not the Life I Love. So, I've decided to start making a Life Plan, and keeping it updated, marking changes, tracking growth.

And thusly, the following.

School

• work with Malynne on a Senior Project looking at the changes in what it means to be an "author" with the rise of one-touch web publishing in tangent with the advent of chic-flick type book for smart, capable, independent women. What's the author's gaze? Specifically targeting the evolving relationship between memoir-bloggers and their audience.
• Possibly pull a double major in Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities? (ISHUM)
• Graduate!

And Then . . .

Move Towards Working for Hippie Fest(s) Full Time

• Start volunteering this summer with the Chicago Mayor's Office for Special Event Coordination
• attend as many festivals as possible
• Summer Fest
  
• 10,000 Lakes
• F.U.N.K Fest
  
• Volunteer at Dunegrass
  
• attend as many shows as possible.
  
• Upcoming:
• Umphrey's and Disco Bisquits
  
• Darkstar Orchestra
• Xavier Rudd
• Recently Attended
• Tea Leaf Green
• Railroad Earth

Fleeing the Frozen North

• Austin, Texas: 3 -4 months
• crash with Bryan?
• work somewhere fun, inconsequential
• continue to be a bad ass

Which Brings me to California?

• 6 - 8 months after graduation
• stay with Vick and Lori?
• Check out Berkeley for grad. school
• intern in the jam band music industry
• Jambase?
• SCI Fidelity?
• live in a co-op
• see Yitz frequently!
  
• work at summer camps?
• continue to be a bad ass?
  

Then maybe back to ATX? Portland? Germany? Somewhere amazing I haven't even dreamed of yet? This list shall tell.

To DO, to WORK TOWARDS, but not immediate . . .

• buying another banjo (Seriously, how did my dad manage to lose my banjo?)
  
• learning to play and sing children's songs on the guitar
• go see a psychiatrist
• try not to get put on lithium

Obviously, there are other issues going on in my life, mostly involving crippling depression, attempts to flee everything, these attempts failing, these attempts succeeding, emotional dishonesty, despair, longing, loneliness, guilt, bursts of manic joy, panic, anxiety . Same ole, same ole. It's been hard to get out of bed. It's been hard to be around those I love. It's been hard not to hurt myself. I'm so full of love and feel I lack adequate outlets. Trying to love those that I do have -- only better -- has working out pretty well for me, but not as good as professional help. Again, more on that later. But, I've been saying that for a long time. Later, I'll deal with being Bi-Polar. Later, I'll find a psychiatrist who doesn't want to med me to death. Later, I'll stop hurting myself. Later, I'll stop being scared. Later, I won't be too anxious to function. Later, I'll be okay. Later, I'll . . .

And later is now. I haven't given up yet. Armed with this Plan for The Life, I figure that whatever happens, I have at least some of the other stuff tentatively figured out in life-affirming bulleted list format. And if that doesn't reassure me that all will be okay, nothing will.