So today I randomly stumbled across someone's blog while I was supposed to be doing homework. I saw on Facebook that my friend, whose opinion I highly respect, had stated that she had fallen in love with said blog. My curiosity was naturally piqued and I looked it up. I was amazed, astounded really. There was so much personality in the blog--even the colors contributed to this sense of personality and uniqueness. And none of the letters were capitalized, ala ee cummings. She even had a poem by ee cummings. I read some of her posts and I thought, I want to be like her! There is so much freedom in her expression of these brilliant thoughts--why don't I think this way?
Then I realized what it was. I started forming a blog entry that was brilliant. The thoughts just seemed to flow out of my head, free-expression style. I pictured my blog becoming famous from this one post. And then I pictured putting it in blog format: with semi-colons, commas, periods, and structured sentences. The free brilliance of the blog crashed down along with my dreams of sounding brilliant.
And then I realized my problem--I am too structured in public! I have a brilliant idea and it sounds wonderful in my mind, but then when I try to put it into practice, I realize that I would look like an idiot, and I can't afford to look like an idiot. Not with the jobs that I have, not with the people that I know, not if I want to get into grad school...I must use topic sentences and periods and semi-colons in the correct places, with no run-ons and no fragments! My life must be a beautifully structured essay!
And then I realized, I am an English major! When have you met an English major that was normal, even at BYU? My English major friend (whose comment led me to said blog) just recently shaved her head and when her hair started growing back, dyed it turquoise! And she was telling me about her BYU English major friend, who had to shave her short hair because she is being recruited by lots of prestigious grad schools and her hair was blue...not the best way to represent BYU!
So, I realized, it is time to make my life a poem instead of a structured essay. I don't think I am ready for the blue hair or shaved head yet, but maybe I will have run-on sentences every once in a while. maybe i will even leave off my capitalization--it will give me character. maybe i will write with pen and, instead of leaving room for error, i will keep white-out with me. and maybe i will leave some of the fragments and come back to them later--maybe they will fit in better with my poetic life as opposed to my structured essay!
But maybe I am not ready for poetry yet...perhaps "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" describes me more than I am willing to admit...
"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons..."
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