Ah, how busy life can be (the reason for my extended absence from this site)...and yet I am still in the mere infancy of my life. I take a full schedule of advanced classes, run to activity after activity after activity, then do a pile of homework and attempt to squeeze in some sleep every day. Anyone else sometimes feel like you're living life just to live it, and not even really getting time to enjoy it? And to think...my life will only get more and more complicated from here on out...

Well, that's how I've felt lately, and yet I know there's a reason why I keep trudging on, day after day after day, sleepless night after sleepless night. It's because I'm always working toward some goal, some dream, some future...I always keep something far enough ahead on the horizon so that I feel the necessity of pursuing it. Right now for me, that is my college education and the many decisions I will face after graduation from high school. To be honest, I'm feeling a lot like Luke Skywalker did at the beginning of ANH!

So Luke had grown up with this dream of one day leaving his hot, arid, farming planet (I, also, live on a farm) to make something of himself, to be a part of something greater. Similarly, I plan to leave the farming lifestyle and become an engineer or computer scientist or something of that nature.

And yet despite all the years Luke spent dreaming of escape, he felt an invisible tie to his home and the only family he had known, enough of a tie to cause him to want to stay behind! And me, I am beginning to realize just how much my family and friends really mean to me and how much I am going to miss them. Add in the fact that I have recently started dating someone whom I really like and care about (ironically, his name is...Luke), and you get the perfect recipe for me wanting to come home from college often (my college, Iowa State University, is about 3 1/2 hours from home, not bad, not good, either).

So here I stand, with three days left of high school, ever, and two weeks until graduation, at a turning point in my life, and full of confusion. My plan? I am going to do the only thing I can: continue to love and care about those who I am close to and still pursue my goals. I have decided that there will be no sacrificing either of them because losing either would be unacceptable to me.

After all, things turned out OK for Luke in the end. Alright, so he had to fight and rescue his evil father and defeat a terrible Empire, but he also found his true family through it all. I, unlike Luke, already know my true family, but I also know that I am going to keep them...even if I am required to defeat an evil Sith lord in the process.

And yes, the Force will be with me. Always.