Entry Sixty-Nine

I suddenly feel a great need to expel all pent up energy that I have. Mind energy that is.

I also really want to turn seventy before I leave for New Hampshire.

I try to think of this internship as a stepping stone. I feel like all the other stones after it will be relatively close and easy to get to. But this one feels like I have to take a big leap from the shore where I wait. I'm staring at the water raging past and several metaphorical feet away is this stone. It's small and wet. And as I look at it, I'm not even sure that I will make it if I jump. My stomach churns because I imagine myself just barely missing and falling into the rushing waters and be carried down stream. I keep taking a few steps back and gauging the distance. Then I hurriedly close the gap between me and the edge only to stop just short of making that jump. All because I'm terrified of falling in.

It's like that. Or maybe it's more like tromping through a wet and mosquito infested marsh with the summer sun beating on you and a heavy pack on your back. All of a sudden you some to a channel. You've been hopping these things all day. Most no wider than distance between your shoulder and your fingertip. Piece of cake. But here lies a formidable challenge. The Channel is several feet across. Within it is surprisingly deep water. It would surely go over your head if you landed in it. You wouldn't die, but you would be soaked and you're feet may even land in 6 inches of mud at the bottom. Mostly it would just be awful because all the stuff in you pack would get wet and once you climbed out you would have to walk the rest of the way through the marsh water-logged. The distance isn't horribly far. But it seems that unmanageable when you think of how much your pack is weighing you down and how the knee high boots you are wearing make it hard to run. Using your brain, you take off your pack and toss it to the other side. It lands with a juicy squelch telling you that it will be damp when you retrieve it. Then you back up several paces. Take several deep breaths because there is no way out of this harsh unless you make this jump. And you run. You're boots finding no spring in the sodden, grass laden ground. The muck underneath that grass tries desperately to suck your boots into their depths. You pick up you feet and gain a little speed as the gap closes. And then, right at the edge, you leap. For several breathless moments you are airborne. Watching as the other side gets closer. For one horrifying instant you are sure toy aren't going to make it but then your boots find ground again. But it's only the toes of your boots. Your heel hang off the edge and you feel yourself begin to lean backwards. So you throw all your energy into leaning forward. You even manages to get all your internal organs to help and as one you and you heart, liver, stomach, intestine (including your unremoved appendix), kidneys, bladder, ovaries (because YOU of course are a girl), and even your brain throw yourselves forward. You tilt the other direction and your knees come crashing down onto the marshy land in front of you. You made it, but only just barely and your heart thuds angrily against your chest wondering why you just put it through such an ordeal. But you made it. You are mostly dry and on the other side. Ready to trek the rest of the way through the marsh until you come to the nest channel.

Yeah. I think it's more like that. Wow. I need to remember that for some kind of sacrament meeting talk or a lesson on conquering goals or something.

I think I dispelled all the energy I had. Now my brain is pooped and ready for a nap.

Be prepared for a flurry of posts. Now that I have time to spare...(ahem)...I will be spending it letting out all the pent up emotions I've had this semester in such a way that I won't want to stab myself in the eye if I have to read it again.

Next entry...I am seventy.