Right now I'm jealous. I'm envious. I want something that I see in other people. I want a cause. I want an idea that moves me. I want to wake in the morning inspired by something beyond my control. I want to give my life away for something greater than myself. I look around and see that my life has spun far out of control. It's cluttered and suffocated by boxes of trinkets and too much credit card debt. This isn't me. I once said to my therapist that I really don't care what other people think of me, but that I thought I was supposed to care, so I forced myself to do so. There's a reason I'm created this way. There's a reason why my greatest drive in life to live my life. There's a reason why following the "rules" has left me feeling empty. I think I need to drop out of the race. I'm cleaning out the closets of my house and my head. I haven't felt this sure of anything in a long time.

Just a few weeks ago, my life seemed in such a state of disarray, I couldn't drag myself out of bed in the morning. The school year was wrapping up. My much anticipated vacation was canceled. We couldn't seem to find a home we both liked. Our bank account was about to reach the point in the year when it would only decrease. The strain of holding "it" all together was just a little too overwhelming so I slept. And slept. And slept. If you know me, that's all you really need to know because you understand that if I'm getting more than six hours of sleep a night, something is wrong. The time I wasn't sleeping, I was praying that everything would work out exactly the way it was supposed to. I wasn't worried because I knew it would. It seems like all those little loose ends are finally tying themselves together. This week, I've managed to find two positions in the area where we will be moving. I applied for a loan so we can purchase the property we'...

If you wrote your life's story, what pieces would you intentionally skip? I know you have them. I have several blank spaces, thank you. They are chunks of life that I'd often rather see slide away into the nether regions of the universe and out of memory. At least, I used to. I'm finding that I'm feeling more and more comfortable in my own skin of quirkiness and tragedy. After all, most of those blank spaces are filled with my embarrassing quirks or heart-wrenching tragedy. You see, I'd prefer that you not know my mother has a mental illness or that my heart was broken by the man who told me he loved me but wished I'd lose another 30 pounds or that I used to keep a set of children's encyclopedias in the bathroom for that special reading. Then there is the flip side. I realized today that I am a blank space. I think of all the people I've come in contact with in my life and the moments we've shared. In the long run, no matter how beautiful or life-cha...