Insane, but Necessary

I don't think I've mentioned this yet: I'm traveling up the West Coast, trying to find a place I want to live.

Disclaimer: these pics don't have much to do with this post, except for the journeying trope.

One of my favorite scenes in Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre is this one in the very beginning - where Jane is running away from Rochester.

Sounds very straightforward when I put it that way, doesn't it? It almost seems like I have a plan. This is not precisely true. It's a weird nomadic sort of life. I don't know precisely where I'll be sleeping a week and a half from now, and most people find that a very frightening thought. Actually, sometimes, I find that very frightening.

NOTE: Life is scary. And amazing. The trick is learning how to let it be both at the same time.

Living my life this way seems insane to most people. I'm fully aware of that, and I've just figured out why it makes perfect sense to me:

I've always justified my crazy-seeming actions. I'm used to it.

Jane finds herself at the crossroads, and she tries to figure out where to go. But she has a problem: she knows that Rochester will look for her and search these paths.

FOR EXAMPLE

Q: What? You want to go to a semester-long program in coastal Maine where you live in log cabins heated by wood stoves, work on an organic farm, and learn about the environment with thirty-some other high school juniors? [The Are you crazy? is implied in their tone.]

A: Yes, it'll look great on my college applications.

(Note to young readers: If you want to do unusual stuff, I highly recommend this excuse. But then you should actually use it in your college apps. I did, and I got into a great school.)

ANOTHER EXAMPLE

Q: What? You want to move to New York, without a job? And go to a summer post-grad program designed to train professionals in publishing? The same industry that everyone says is dying and short on jobs?

A: Yes. I've talked about becoming a writer since kindergarten. When else will I get a chance to learn the industry from the inside?

So, eventually Jane decides to ditch the roads and cut across the moors.

THE MOST RECENT EXAMPLE

Q: What? You want to give up your hardwon, well-placed job in New York and try to get published? In this terrible economy?

A: Yes. Unfortunately, the noise and energy of New York have given me insomnia, which has led to some unforeseen health problems. I need to move to recover.

Now, the answers I gave were not the whole answer. But what can we glean here?

#1. Where there is great risk, there will always be naysayers.

#2. I take risks. (But honestly, so do we all. I just didn't realize how many gambles I've taken with my whole life in the past ten years.)

#3. You can get naysayers off your backs by framing an answer around something most people value - education, career, and health.

Talk about the road less traveled. The moors are basically the wilderness. Nice, sheltered, educated young governesses just don't trot off into the wilderness on their own. It's just not done.

I love this scene in the book too, btw.

But I don't have a ready-made excuse this time.

My reasons are the same reasons I had for the above examples, the reasons that I didn't say outloud: I want to. It'll be a great experience. I've been talking about it for years.

And one more, which is even harder to define: It feels like the right thing to do.

Yes, it is probably insane. That doesn't make it unnecessary.

I am twenty-five. Both of my jobs can travel with me on my laptop. I know that I won't always have the opportunity to be so nomadic. I also know that if I don't do this, one day, decades from now, when I have children, a mortgage, and other responsibilities, I will wish I did.

The great and scary thing is, I'm not required to explain myself to anyone anymore. That's the benefit of being a grown-up.

Brace yourself for some cheese-tasticness, folks: I try to live my life the way my characters do. I try to be true to myself, and as cliche as it sounds, I am following my heart.

Those decisions? The ones that seemed nuts? They're the ones I appreciate the most.

In their aftermath, I grew the most.

The Quarter Life Crisis

Okay, so there's really not a quarter life crisis.

But I've been joking about it all month - I couldn't resist putting it in here too.

Maybe it's just a family joke: If you know me well, sooner or later, I'll tell you that I'm going to live to be a hundred. I sound like I'm joking, but I'm really joking the way that Karou jokes with her art school classmates in Daughter of Smoke & Bone. As in, the tone is right, but the words are true.

I seriously am shooting for a hundred. A century sounds awesome. I'll be like Beverly Cleary (95), sharp as a tack - no, sharp as a freaking samurai sword, and lording over her legacy with deft skill of master-craftswoman. *daydreams*

What?! It could happen! Three of my great-grandmothers lived well into their nineties.

If you look up centenarian on Wikipedia, this is the picture that comes up.

I'm seriously not kidding about that. Her name was Muriel Duckworth. She was Canadian. I hope, on my 100th birthday in 2086, I remember to wear a color that brings out my eyes.

WOW, what a tangent.

I turned twenty-five this week. Hence, the Quarter Life Crisis joke.

(Sadly, jokes are never as funny if you have to explain them, which I have done above. Le sigh.)

But okay, I am still halfway to thirty. - Well, as my friend's fiance pointed out, it's technically halfway to fifty. But I'm not going to think about that.

If I wasn't happy about things, I could have had a mid-twenties crisis. I could whine about how I'm not doing anything with my life. How I'm not where I want to be. How I really want to be doing X, Y, and Z. I could be miserable.

But as you'll notice, I'm not.

I'm actually really grateful. Instead of feeling anxious on my twenty-fifth birthday, I felt all giggly. I'm talking little girl giddiness. Like Christmas Day, how-fast-can-I-open-these-presents joy.

You know what Sandra Cisneros says in her short story, "Eleven," about birthdays?

What they don't understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you're eleven, you're also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don't. You open your eyes and everything's just like yesterday, only it's today. And you don't feel eleven at all. You feel like you're still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven.

I've talked about being a writer since I was five.

Five-year-old Shelby and twenty-year-old Shelby, thirteen, and twelve, and eleven year old Shelby, and all of the other Shelbys underneath -- they're all rather pleased with twenty-five-year old Shelby. Proud of me even.

Because all of them know that by the time I reach twenty-six, I will be able to hold my book in my hand. And turn the pages. And give it to people. And put it on a shelf in my house and see my own name facing out at me - every single day.

(Wow, apparently I'm kinda proud of twenty-five-year-old Shelby too. :-P)

Anyway, I spend a fair amount of time in panic, freak-out mode. Like - OMG, revision deadline! OMG, synopsis time! OMG, copyedits!!! Copyedits in the three days!!!! There's stress in this business, most of it self-inflicted.

But despite how I feel sometimes, I'm exactly where I wanted to be. This is what I've dreamed about for pretty much as long as I could remember. If I could go back in time and meet my younger self, the five-year-old Shelby would think I was cool. How many people can say that?

According to five-year-old Shelby, I'm a success. And that's actually not such a bad measure of success.

I think I'll keep it around for the day I turn thirty.

Of course, I thought a lot of things were cool circa age 5. I present exhibit A:

This may actually be four year old Shelby.
But it's clear from this pic that I've always been a lady of taste.
Tigger, for instance, TOTALLY goes with this outfit.