Someone hand me a crystal ball...

I sometimes think that I wish I had "psychic powers' so that I would know what it is that I'm supposed to do with my life.  Each day that I bring up my career aspiration dilemma, I get a new idea that sounds great to me.  First, I was interested in medicine.  I talked with many people and did my research and decided that I was going to go to medical school and specialize in geriatric medicine.  After many science classes that ended with me pulling my hair out, I decided that maybe medicine wasn't for me.  So I started thinking and realized that I love helping people and I love writing (most of the time) and working in a hands-on environment.  This led me to a conversation that I had with a neighborhood college kid when I was 8 or 9 that told me, after I had presented an awesome argument on some obscure subject, that I would make a great lawyer.  So now, I'm thinking that maybe I should go into law.  Probably not criminal, but divorce or family law.  But then I talked to an aunt that told me of many people that she knows who go into nursing to make great money while they're in law school.  Imagine having a nursing and a law degree?  Who knew!  It's like the best of both worlds for me.  My only issue with it is that, of course I would have to take more science classes, and it would be an 18 month to 2 year detour from law school.  Why detour, one would ask?  Because I have a beautiful new 7-week-old daughter to take care of and while working a part-time, low wage job was OK for me, I need to do better for my daughter.
So there's the whole of it in a nut shell.  So if someone has a crystal ball handy or a new phone number for Ms. Cleo, then it would really be helpful right about now.  Or maybe I shouldn't even wonder, I should just jump right in and do it.

Living in Denial

While watching the movie "Observe and Report", I stopped laughing and started thinking about denial.  What is it about us as people that we will live in denial of reality in order to keep ourselves happy?  Is denial just a ridiculous way of living or is it a necessary way for people to keep the little piece of mind they have?  Is denial just a way for a person to avoid growing up?
We can deny who we are as a person so that we can continue to live the life we think we're supposed to live.  We can deny the truth so that we don't have to deal with the consequences of that truth.  But the funny thing about denial is that you can deny that you're in denial.  Sure, you can tell yourself, for example, that your only eating when you're upset because you're hungry, but you have to think: why are you making an excuse for yourself in the first place?  Because you recognized a problem and decided to continue your course of denial with the action it shows up in.
Then again, the human brain uses denial to keep its sanity alive.  Thinking about people who experience an extremely traumatic event, denial is a way for the brain to begin the healing process.  At first there may be no recollection of the event, but as the healing goes on, a person slowly begins to stop deny that the event happened and allows themselves to move on.
I would like to say that I have never used denial in my own life, but that would be a denial in itself :-).  I think that once you recognize that denial is being used in your life, you can finally deny it access to your life again.

Rediscovery

     After recently regaining access to my music collection (from a broken hard drive), I realized how much my music collection means to me.  My classic favorites had been lost to me for over a year.  I tried to cope by downloading music I knew I was missing, but no matter how many songs I downloaded, I was always missing something.  Now in my life, as I go through different experiences, music has become the old friend that it once was.  Being a student, and now a new mom, I realize that the amount of time I have in a day is continually shortening.  That means that I don't have the same amount of time like I did in high school to sit around for a couple hours just listening to music in my room; but those memories are part of the nostalgia behind a good song.
     When it comes to a good song, it can make you feel better or take you to a different place.  A good song can comfort, depress, or make you wish that you were the person the artist is singing about.  A good song is like a good friend, and I have also rediscovered few of them lately also.  Rediscovering a good friend can also be a lot like rediscovering a good song.  Sometimes it's a good experience and sometimes, it's a friend you should have left in the past.  Luckily, like my hard drive, I'm happy that friends I grew away from have come back in my life; and I don't plan on losing either again.