Life Don't Go How You Planned It

I fully believe that everything happens at a predestined time. Fate, if you will. If I'm upset but don't have the words to write, I don't force it. I wait for when the words flow easily. The correct timing will give words to the emotion and healing to the hurt. If a book doesn't draw me in, I put it back on the shelf. For another time, another day, another emotional chaos. Soon enough when I pick it back up the pages will speak the words that my soul cannot. If a movie doesn't feel "right" I wait to watch it. It never fails that when a movie does feel right, it will be "for such a time as this." 

Becoming Jane was such a movie. It was accidentally sent to me by Netflix 3 weeks ago when my number one choice wasn't available. Since then it has been carried around in my backpack disappointed that it wasn't my first choice. But last night was the night for it to be right. And how right it was. I'm always gungho for an "old fashiondy" love story. But this is the type of love story not often told, but just the type I needed to experience. 

*Spoiler Alert*

It doesn't end in love. At least not the kind you most often find in "books" (which I of course find wildly ironic) It's the type that you sneer at originally because you think "o. just another trite tale." then find yourself rooting that  the tragedy won't happen. That it will be trite again! That love will conquer all. That love will override the pride, the prejudice, and the standards. The type that when it ends you sit quietly and wish that Jane's ruined love is not foreshadowing your own. 

"A novel must how how the world truly is, how characters genuinely think, how events actually occur. A novel should somehow reveal the true source of our actions."

Maybe if more "creators" had this mindset we would grow up with a truly realistic sense of reality. Perhaps we wouldn't expect sunshine when rain is predicted, and then experience the hurt when the rain does indeed come. Life would be very different 

if we were raised in realism, instead of idealism. 

Jane wanted to write what she knew, the matters of the heart. Somehow her novels end up more "right" than her own love story did. 

"Mrs. Radcliffe: Of what do you wish to write?

Jane Austen: Of the heart. 

Mrs. Radcliffe: Do you know it? 

Jane Austen: Not all of it. 

Mrs. Radcliffe: In time, you will. But even if that fails, that's what the imagination is for. 

Even so I wish it weren't so. From an idealistic standpoint it is unjustifiable. But to be broken hearted and alone? That is real and understandable. I don't know why it was so. I just know it was. Becoming Jane was oddly refreshing in that it reminded me that the condition of my heart is not a new or solitary one. Many woman before me have experienced it, truly since the beginning of time. The tragic lives of lady Victorian authors has always been near and dear to my heart ever since my mom
introduced me to Jane Eyre. 

Life is tragic.

Life is hard.

And life doesn't go how you plan it.

Sometimes I trick myself into thinking that if I don't plan, or dream I can't be disappointed. But I now know that strangely, not living is a more painful disappointment than the first. To not live vicariously is an injustice I commit of my own volition. And injustice is a bittersweet pill I have swallowed to many times before. 

Dad whispered in my ear the other day that I need to feel free to do whatever I want. To not march behind anyone else and essentially to do hard things; no matter the possible end result. I know people have told me that all my life, but I don't know if I ever really believed that I could be the girl who went for it all. I had expected that life would go as planned, the plan I thought I wanted. I would lead a perfect high school life, I would proceed to college immediately and get an unknown but useful degree. I would marry young, have lots of babies and live out the rest of my life in a planned way. I would die at a grand old age. 

I haven't accomplished any of that, and I'm not sure I want to. Life up until now hasn't convinced me that is the way to go. Plans go awry. Really, my relationship with Jeremy has me convinced that the status quo isn't for me. The trite sayings and the things I was supposed to say and supposed to feel that wasn't me. And I suppose that became clear to all of us on
April 12, 2010.

I want more out of life than love. I want it all. And if it means living a crazy, solitary, degree-less, early death life? I'm ok. I really am. Because that means I lived "life unexpected". 

I regret much of life up until now, because I have constantly done, thought, felt; what I thought I was supposed to. I lived in fear that if I didn't meet the benchmarks I would never have another chance. No more. I have a bucket list and I'm going to accomplish it all. -by golly- (<---felt that was necessary) Without fear. Because even if I fail, I still did it. I started it. Which is more than I can say for my life right now. So I'm going to work and transfer in January to UNC for prevet. Or maybe I won't. Maybe it will be criminal justice or theatre. Maybe I'll work my way through Europe; scrubbing dishes for my next train ticket. Or maybe I'll settle in Helena and work my way to the very top in the legislature. Or maybe I'll fall and move back in with mom. But I'll get back on my feet and try again, and again and again. If that is what it takes to live my dreams, then it's ok. 

But, like I suspect, so many writers I can be braver on this page than I can in life. But life doesn't go as we plan it. Love doesn't last we expect it to. We must prepare for loss and the fact we may never get it back. Whether "it" is our jobs, our love or our sanity; the truth is the same. We may need to branch into another work force. He really won't ever come back, but your next lesson dressed in wranglers will come along and it will be an epic love story that may not end. And sanity is relative to individual situation. 

So silent friend I often challenge you to greatness 
but this time,
 I challenge myself. 

I'm ready for life, and I'm ready for it to not go how I plan.