Zombie Plans

I had a recent scare involving being booted from my dream.  My way of dealing with it this time around made me realize how much I've grown in my adult life.  I used to be terrified of coloring outside the lines, but I saw myself looking at the possibility of being compelled to blaze an as yet unconcidered trail as something beautiful and possibly serendipitous.  

As I was preparing my salutatory speech for high school graduation, it was suggested that I simply blast "No Such Thing," by John Mayer, which had just come out at the time.  Maybe I should have done it.  The ironic thing is that I didn't play it because I wanted to please the principal, who I am still convinced was in education because he hated teenagers and being a high school principal gave him the means to make their lives miserable.  At the time, I remember thinking, "Yeah, run through the halls of the high school!" but now I think one of the most important messages in that song is, "I am invincible, as long as I'm alive," and I am just now, after twenty five years of life failures and successes, coming to truly believe that.  If things don't go as planned, things can still work out just fine.

I made a list of dreams that could be better served outside of graduate school.  Jen called them Zombie Plans, referring to the plans that some nerdy young men tend to make regarding what they should do in case of zombie apocalypse.  They are plans that are in place even though the need for them is highly unlikely to arise.  They ranged from sensible to totally impractical, but they were my dreams.  They are my dreams.  First thing that came to mind was optometry school.  I had forgotten all about that one.  When I graduated high school, I wanted to be an optometrist (and an artist on the side), but my optometrist told me I should be an opthalmologist instead because they make more money, so I thought, "Sure, I'll go to medical school."  Then in college I decided that my unusual fear of blood and needles made me a poor candidate for medicine and abandoned that dream for Chemistry.  Anyhow, I let the tides around me pull me away from what I wanted to do, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I think it was a dream that needed to be rediscovered.  

Then came some immediately rejected ideas:  organic farming, exotic dancer, rock star, and helicopter pilot.

I wanted something creative.  I would love to be a science writer, writing about recent hot button research topics in an entertaining format for the general public.  I decided during this time that I wanted to continue writing poetry and creating artwork.  I discovered the need to feed my artistic side.

So...  Even though the threatening zombie apocalypse was avoided for now, I'm glad I had the opportunity to consider the possibilities outside my chosen path and glance into the detours I could have taken, and could still travel.