Measure my Life with a Limbo Stick

The routine is something like this: 6 a.m. signified by a shrill and insensitive alarm clock, with no apparent regard for my nerves or my necessitated continuation of slumber.

I bite my lip, assuring myself that maturity means never crying when your alarm clock goes off.

I roll off the couch that has become my new home, a bed frame in pieces in an upstairs bedroom while its mattress lies useless and naked in Murray.

A 45-minute drive and a diet coke before 8 a.m. solidify the creeping
suspicion that 6 hours of sleep just wasn’t enough.

Work until 5, when I’ll return to a home that isn’t mine, eat from borrowed plates, run through a neighborhood I don’t know, and fashion a bed from an overstuffed couch.

Yes, this is my season in limbo.

It’s a wonder then, that I’ve never been so happy. Independence is a new skin, one that comes with a freedom I never felt during my college years (which, I may add, only concluded a week ago).

I’ve known for some time that I’m addicted to newness. A fresh start is like a drug, injected into my spine with a burst of opportunity and the sweeping air of new challenges.

I crave the changing seasons, start a new book before the last one is finished, write, rewrite, and write again, and never consider anyone my boyfriend.

In my little world where nothing is permanent, I find myself thinking I should be overwhelmed by my constant state of purgatory.

I fear that I’m committed solely to a noncommittal life.

I wonder, sometimes, why we work toward this goal of “settling down.” Career security and a stable family are fine ambitions, to be sure. But I won’t ever “settle” for the sake of comfort. Part of me will always be restless, insatiable, voracious.

The world is an ever-changing expanse of new challenges, new discoveries, and new people.

And I could settle for that.