The Thinker. I’ve been thinking all my life. I’ve never stopped; I’ve thought about too much and at a time, which I felt was far too early. You can call it maturity but at times I called it torture and besides I think maturity is measured by mature actions rather than words or age (you can be seventy years old and still get in fights with your hundred-something year old parents about the mess in your room). Who but God can know the depths of the human mind? Millions of ideas, words, moments I remember just appear in my head at moments that usually aren’t best. Still, I realize that I’m blessed because I have this mind. No matter how much I feel like I don’t want to be who I am, I always find moments that I love in this lifetime process of growing up.
Rain. Rain. Rain. It’s cold when it rains and though I love the rain, a sort of heavy feeling comes over you when it rains. I never want to go anywhere. I just want to grab a blanket and huddle in it until the sun comes out again. It rained for the first few days of college. I felt that same heaviness, wanted that blanket, and just didn’t want to move. I guess it wasn’t just the rain. I realized I was growing up and I didn’t want to. But life is constantly moving, so like the rain, I had to hit the pavement. It was hard. I wasn’t to happy with where I was. I was angry as systemic issues with CUNY. A little upset that I’d have to travel to a crowded city. I had to get back to work again after a long summer of doing nothing but relaxing. I had no idea of anything I wanted to do and I was a person who was still a child in the sense that I would wait until something was done for me but I kind of needed to just…
WAKE UP! Who’s going to do anything for me now? I have to start moving I have to start making some decisions and actions for myself. Who cares if I end up messing up a bit? That’s okay. What, do I expect never to make a mistake and just not try anything in life? Overdue library books get you overdue fines, and those stop you in your tracks. So I can’t just keep waiting for things to get done. Right now, that’s out my character a bit, not in my script so to speak. I have to change. Can I? Can I really change at this point or are my ways set in stone? No, I can change. I can’t become someone else, that’s just unnatural, but I can change my attitudes. It’ll be difficult since laziness is my vice, but I can’t stop! I can’t just quit at school even if I want to. Life I know will be 10,000 times harder if I do. This education will make life easier even though it brings some hardships now. I have to make the most of this experience. I have to be, be aggressive! Woo!
SO. Maybe my scholarly life has taken off but it seems my personal life hasn’t. I feel like I hit a snag at home. I mean not cleaning my room doesn’t deserve a ‘what is this world coming to!?!?!?’ kind of lecture does it? But it’s true I’m not living up to my end of this deal. My parents grow older and I have to grow up as well. It’s tough. We do argue. I realize at times I’m not even really angry sometimes. Do you ever get that? I’ve done things I can say I’m not proud of. It’s not childish things like stealing, although I guess I’ve taken something intangible like, peace. It’s not childish things like yelling over people… well maybe I have been immature. I guess it’s hard to see if something‘s childish when you’re not on the receiving end… listening to the nonsense. It’s difficult when you realize you’ve been a fool. Although my generation doesn’t always believe it with age comes wisdom most of the time. My parents have been through a lot. Raising eight kids (of which I am the eighth) probably giving up so much of what they wanted for us. I treat them like they’re the children but in reality they know so much more about this world than I do.
LORD. I can’t deny the fact that I’m a Christian. It makes up who I am, even if it’s tough to speak up about it. You might think it’s crazy but it’s love. I’ve been through a lot in my relationship with God and it’s been rocky sometimes but all I want is to move forward and love others, even if just a fraction, the way that God loved me. I can’t lie; life and people don’t make it easy.
So who am I? Am I a library book stealing, messy, creative, funny, laughing, Christian girl, an artist, a singer, a human, a Queens resident since forever, daughter of a king, a sister, a fool, a girl, an aunt, a genius, someone on the train, an economist, a success? Who will I be? What will I do? Where will I go?
I’m Elizabeth Urbaez and I won’t find out until I get there…
