Things to complain about.

1. School is taking away all hours for work so I'm broke
2. Spent all the money I had saved for my tattoo on books and art supplies
3. I have a lot of debt that wasn't there 2 months ago
4. Alopecia is relapsing a bit
5. I'm at school from 8 am to 10 pm pretty much everyday
6. The only days I'm not, I'm at work or doing homework
7. I haven't had time to read leisurely books in weeks
8. I commute and use gas like a bitch. (See #1)
9. My best friend is finally in town and I have no time to really see her
10. My sister and father make the house a mess and I clean until midnight before doing homework
11. I miss my mother and she needs to come back now
12. I have a stupid large ass fine at the library (see #1)
13. I spent 8 hours in the newsroom yesterday and will do the same on Sunday

But I don't give a shit.

I couldn't be happier with life than I am right now.

I never complain about these things. It takes everything for me to stop myself from going on and on about how wonderful all my classes are and how fun the newsroom is at midnight when everyone is laughing out of delirium and begging the managing editor to go get us stuff from the local liquor store.

It takes all my efforts to maintain my giggling excitement when I see the page spreads actually coming together in final form.

I catch myself smiling and utterly fascinated at the end of a lecture in my Peace and Conflict in the Middle East class.

I don't even feel the hours go by in my graphic design classes as I practice calligraphy while my professor plays ancient Buddhist monk music, or as I sketch all the possibilities for my logo design project.

I embarrassingly laugh at myself in my graphic deign history class when I realize that I said "Whoaaa...." aloud after hearing something just ridiculously interesting about ancient type and design.

I have the most lighthearted and laughable time with my best friends. And despite the annoyance, I feel warm and relieved when I come home to a house with my dorky cynical father and my even dorkier analytic sister.

I don't think I've ever felt this passionately immersed in something before.

And it makes me think, I was so wrong when I thought I knew what I wanted--when I thought I was so right. It's probably one of the most important things I've learned.

Don't push something aside because you've spent your entire life stuck to one thing or to one idea of who you are going to be in life. Don't stick with something because it was "the plan." Sometimes the plan is shit. Or sometimes the plan isn't as good as you thought and definitely isn't the right one for you.

I underestimated my love for art. I underestimated how much I could apply it to life and my future. But I pushed it aside because the plan was to be THE WRITER. To be THE JOURNALIST. Art is a pastime, not a realistic plan for life and a career. That's what I believed, that my love for art was secondary to something I was better at and to something that was more applicable. And although I still plan to author published novels and poems, nothing gets me more excited than design.

In retrospect, it's almost terrifying how wrong you can be about yourself--your OWN self. What's even stranger is how everyone else knew it about you all the while.