Today is a beautiful day. It's about fifty degrees, incredibly windy, the sky is clear, the air crisp and clean, and squirrels and various types of birds are everywhere. Rain has been a frequent visitor recently - powerful thunderstorms that usually come in the night. It's quite an experience to be woken up by the rain and/or hail, look outside, and see other people who are doing the same thing, drawn by nature's alluring expressions.

I'm not a philosopher. Though I try to talk the talk with friends of mine whose strongest passions lean toward discovering the meaning of life, I don't think about it much on my own. My desires are simple: to be happy, preferably in a way that doesn't rely on too many illusions. Yet, a part of me always questions the validity of any happiness I do attain, for fear that it is caused in whole or part by some self-created denial or repression of something important.

I've used the word "happy" so much that I'm not even sure what it means to me anymore. Its shades of meaning have ranged from simple contentment to sustained periods of joy. So to give my current mindset the proper connotation, I'll attempt to describe its outward effects instead, without dwelling too much on my vague mental state, which I haven't recently given much thought to anyway.

I say hello more often to people that I know by sight. I used to pass by people in my Hum, Soc, or step class with something like a timid smile, but now, if I recognize them, I find myself saying hi. It's easier for me to ask questions in class. When I care about understanding, I'm not really worried about looking stupid, so I'll ask. I don't feel stressed about finding someone to go see movies with anymore. I have two really solid options, and four or so alternates who I'd feel comfortable asking. Overall, on the slide scale from misery to joy, where contentment is near the middle but a tiny bit closer to joy, I'm a teeny, tiny bit closer to joy than contentment. Just a little, though.

My current situation is good. Really good, in fact, as long as I don't think about my upcoming decison too much and live in the moment. In fact, when I consider the soon-to-come situation that could tear apart my tentative..."happiness"...all I seem to think of are the funny possibilities.

A showdown: quasi-reality vs. virtual reality. Which will win? Which side has the bigger guns, the faster reflexes? And what, exactly, will mediate the fight and make sure it's fair? Usually I would fret and worry over hurting someone else, or myself somehow, even though I am consciously far too detached for the latter to occur. But at the moment it's like some B-rate melodrama - the plot's somewhat interesting, but it's just slightly too over-acted to be taken seriously. When both types of realities converge, meeting in my personal ultimate reality, perhaps things will finally get taken seriously, at least by me.

And maybe they'll just think it's funny, too. I don't know. The bottom line, I guess, is that I'm "happy" now, I'm ignoring my fears of blinding delusions, I'm doing my best to make someone that I care about happier, and the future isn't here yet. For now, today is a beautiful day.

Sometimes life gives us situations with multiple choices, but that don't really require us to make decisions. Technically, of course, though there may be a clear Option A and Option B (or more), we knew as soon as the situation arose what we would do.

Choosing a college can be such an example. Sometimes while filling out applications, someone might realize that a particular school is right for them, and they'll be admitted and attend, regardless of whatever else might happen along the way. Financial aid issues, a bad campus visit, parental pressure to attend elsewhere - none of these would make a difference. In this person's mind, everything just fits perfectly, and no external circumstances can change that or cast doubt upon it.

And sometimes the situation is like this, but one glaring "unless". I will certainly do such-and-such, unless this one possibility comes into being. Then I'll really have to give the idea more thought. I will definitely attend this school, unless I fall madly in love before I send in my reply card. I will never ask my mother for relationship advice, unless I can find no one else to ask. I won't ever have plastic surgery, unless something damages my face/body, like fire or acid.

Sometimes the near-certain situation is something we really want to happen. We want to believe in ourselves, and think we're strong enough to overcome even our one exception. And many times, we are. But sometimes, we are not. We end up not doing this thing we really believed we'd do, really wanted to accomplish.
And then, having thought of the "unless" beforehand doesn't help much.

These days I find myself filled with a great apathy toward much of what is going on around me. I find the idea of my job little more than a hindrance. Physci labs are either completely incomprehensible or laughably easy. Hum class lulls me to sleep. Ebay is losing its appeal.

But in the opposite way, I am also strangely excited by some things, as well. Sigmund Freud and Jessica Benjamin in my Soc class. Utilitarianism. Going up a riser in step aerobics class, and soaking my workout clothes in sweat. The prospect of spending 10 weeks as a counselor at Girl Scouts Camp.

I just want to be somewhere that has a set workday: At X time, or when X duties are finished, you're free. Free to do whatever you wish, whether it be napping in the sun, reading an indulgent horror or romance novel, taking a walk, or writing for the mere sake of writing.

There are three things I'm looking forward to, that get me through the apathetic times.
Girl Scout Camp, where I'll work hard all day and fall into bed and sleep deeply at night.
The two months I'll have at home, where I will be completely free (albeit lonely, I'm sure).
Returning to school in September, to my single room, and to a boyfriend who came through on his promise to write me during the summer.

As much as I try, I haven't been living in the moment recently. I wait, instead. I (sometimes) wait for a particular class to be over, I wait for Thursdays, noon, when I am done with academic classes for the week. I wait for my checks to clear so I can buy my plane ticket to San Francisco. I wait for frivolity, for fun, for the presence of someone who makes me feel like I am alive, for the time to sleep, for time to file my nails or do laundry, for the time to write back to the relatives who have written me, for something, anything, to break through the wall I have built around myself, and rebuild even as I try to tear it down.

But to be fair, there are moments in my life I wish I could save somehow, and I am sure to appreciate them for what they are. Usually, though, they just whet my appetite for more of them, and make the waiting more difficult to endure.

So life goes, though. It is not all sunshine and roses. In a few moments, everything could be different. I can never tell when a change, a single splendid moment, might be coming.
But I wait...