Meg Dowell Writes

It’s a sad day when you have so many things you could do that you can’t choose.

I could read the Sarah Dessen books I got for Christmas, or I could work on the novel I never finished writing. I could make my bed and clean my room, maybe even the whole house if I’m bored enough. I could find a place for the purple Olivet pens my mom bought that don’t actually write in purple, which is a sin. I could write a letter to someone I miss, even though I wouldn’t know where to send it if I did. I could watch more Gilmore Girls, or I could eat breakfast. Or I could do both at the same time.

I could do homework, but that would mean thinking. That would mean reading Thoreau, even though one of his quotes is on my wall now. I could shop online for books I want to buy with my Borders giftcard, but I haven’t even read all of the ones I got last Friday. I read two books in thirty-three hours this weekend, so I felt accomplished yet useless at the same time. They were good books though, the ending to a series I liked and a Sarah Dessen I’ll never forget. Then again, how could I?

I could plan a New Years Eve party for my friends, but they probably wouldn’t come. Not because they don’t love me, but because they have more important things to do. Birthdays to celebrate and families to spend time with and other friends to see. A week and a half left of high school and then reality kicks in. Why did you listen to your guidance counselor, they ask? Because it seemed like a good idea at the time. Then again, I’ll miss my teachers and choir and study hall, but not the school itself; not the careless sophomores who stand in the middle of the hallway or people screaming to each other across the room through one side of my head to the other. I won’t miss people sitting at my table in the cafeteria or bumping the table with their legs while I’m trying to write in my journal. My words will stay on the lines at community college.

For a semester. January to the middle of May, and then a summer to myself.

I’m planning a road trip. I haven’t really told anyone because it’s never come up. There are six of us; three will be nineteen, one eighteen, and two becoming adults four days apart, in July. We’ll take a van or something, pile in, and we’ll drive somewhere. I don’t know where. A lake or something. We can stay in a big house, all of us, and drive each other crazy. I don’t know where we’ll get the money. Most of us don’t have jobs and have given up looking. I’ll bring my camera, and we’ll take hundreds of thousands of pictures while we’re there. I don’t know how long we’ll stay; long enough to feel like a family, and to forget the future, and to teach Evie how to tan. College won’t bother us and we won’t bother it, not while we’re on vacation.

The most epic Operation ever.

I’ll teach myself how to play the guitar this summer, and write a novel or two, and read twenty-five books. No school. I’ll get a laptop for college and take it with me everywhere so I can thrive as a writer and stop going on Facebook so much. But before all that I have to make my brain hurt. I have to cooperate with math and science and give speeches I don’t care about and pretend like I have a life. And I have to live through finals and job hunting and graduation in my white cap and gown and hopefully golden cords and the first college orientation they offer because of my early deposit. Maybe then we’ll go. We can sing Love Story and all those other songs we love so much.

But now, finish high school. Two more papers, a few finals. Turn in two journals, a project. I could get it all done now, but where’s the fun in that?

Love&hugs, Meg♥