how did we get here?

As I left for work this morning, I called to my brother Mike, back in LA for winter break, "I'm off to schoo-- ugh, if only I were still in school." He scoffed and barked something along the lines of "school sucks" or "yeah, right."

After who knows how many years of formal education, here I am...in limbo. Back in LA. Back at home. Waiting for....what? Life after college is the great unknown.

As a kid, teen, young adult...whatever label at whatever point, you imagine that understanding just hits you once you begin your "real life." Life is a progression of stages, vaguely defined by where you are in school....grade school, middle school, high school, college, then ??....and more specifically, you (or I do at least) categorize memory by year...6th grade was all fun and games, 10th grade there was self-discovery and junior year of college were all of those adventures abroad. Now that I've lost the parameters by which I measure my life, am I just floating somewhere in space? That void between events? What happens now? I guess I move out of my mom's house. Do I start to measure my life by decades, or those big obscure milestones - work? marriage? children? retirement?

I'm confused, nostalgic (on the road to that old loopy bag lady living in the dreams of long passed youth?), excited (I'm on the precipice of something big, right?), impatient, anxious, underwhelmed and overwhelmed....but there's one thing that's become abundantly clear?

I'm definitely not alone.

All of my friends feel like they're swimming in circles, my brother, a couple years ahead of me, struggles to get his bearings, even those who appear on a linear path towards their dream of success have untold cracks in those straight-laced seams.

So, I figured, might as well chronicle whatever diluted road I'm taking and perhaps some sort of clarity will follow. It's worth a shot.

Oh, and some apt wisdom from a friend:

Sitting here in limbo

But I know it won't be long

Sitting here in limbo

Like a bird without a song

Well, they're

Putting up resistance

But i know that my faith

Will lead me on

Sitting here in limbo

Waiting for the dice to roll

Sitting here in limbo

Got some time to search my soul

Well, they're

putting up resistance

But I know that my faith

Will lead me on

I don't know where life will lead me

But I know where I've been

I can't say what life will show me

But I know what I've seen

Tried my hand

At love and friendship

But all that is passed and gone

This little boy is moving on

Sitting here in limbo

Waiting for the tide to flow

Sitting here in limbo

knowing that I have to go

Sitting in Limbo

Jimmy Cliff