Here's day two of my "year" and I love it so far. Waking up in the morning at 6:45 AM and not allowing myself to sleep until 10:00ish is difficult. By 6:00 PM, my head is foggy and I'm grasping at things to do to stay awake for another four hours. Good thing is I get all my school work and business done before 6:00ish, but geez, I'm too sleepy to do fun things, like write and sketch. The most I can manage is to sit in front of telly and be a drone. However, I am content at the end of the day because I am accomplishing what I need to do every day. I have no unfinished business.

And rarely do I feel guilty about being a sixth year undergraduate. Perhaps because I know I am in the right place and I am living my life to the fullest of my potential. On TV and in the media, when people find out that they only have one year to live, they live it out--traveling, seeing the world, filling their days with everything that will be gone when they fall asleep for the last time.

I think the most adventure I'll ever have is here in my head. My city, my college, the people I encounter in my life--it is all enough to fill this year. I think--more than anything else--I am afraid of expecting life, decades of life, and not receiving it. If I plan to live for decades and decades, and I do not get all these years, then that will drive me crazy. I start putting off LIFE, the everyday enjoyment and completion of LIFE, because I expect endless days. The expectation of endless days destroys the beauty of every single day. However, living day by day, receiving every year like a gift, I can do. If any forthcoming day could be my last, then it should be lived in perfection, as I want to live, as I would want my last day on Earth to be. These last two days, I have felt that I could die any minute, and I would be ready. That is what a full, accomplished day gives me, and that is exactly what I need. Nothing more.

I used to think that if I was only given one more year, I would give up everything--school and my career plans--and go back to my family, and spend the rest of my days finishing the book I am writing. That's impossible. That's not my life. Today, I am content with the stories I have written. And these two days, I have imagined something beautiful. On my desk is a stack of written pages. All one inch margins, all double spaced, 12 point font in Times New Roman. It is my essays--all the finished ones, all the ones still in my head--all completed. I don't know what I have to give except these pages.

I try and I can't imagine all the expanse of time before I was born, and I can't imagine the expanse of years after I am gone, and I don't know that these few years of life that I'm given--what was it all for? I don't know, but I have faith in those pages.

So I'll continue my life as it is, and I hope I can finish those pages.