A barrage of thoughts...

I've been trying, for days, to develop a good post. I want to entertain, to educate, to encourage with my words here. But it's been a dry spell--creativity is far from me.

My mind is constantly churning thoughts, what-ifs, and scenarios about today, tomorrow, next month, and the next few years. I hate not knowing where I'm going, or what road I'm really even on, and that's precisely how I feel these days. Lost. Wandering...aimlessly.

I know our plans for the next year, even next few years. I know that I'm starting school again a year from now, that it'll take me three years to finish, unless I can bully my way through by cramming my days and nights with classes (like I did with Master's degree #1). I know that we won't be out of debt until the end of next summer, but that this summer's salary will pay for next summer's schooling, so we can make that fly. I know that in doing school this way, I'll be partially reimbursed, and that will remain during my entire 3-year part-time student, full-time employee status. I know that if we move, if we relocate so Kyle's days aren't as exhausting and long, all of this could change. That if we bought a house somewhere--here, there, anywhere--it would or could or may change all these plans. I also know how much can change in a year.
I became engaged a year ago. Now I've been married for 9 months. How'd that happen? Where did the time go?

I was reading over the archives of a friend's blog, someone I haven't contacted since college, but who writes well and, at least in college, shared many appreciations with me, for literature, music, and art. She and her husband had made plans to move to a country in Africa, and as the time neared for them to leave, the organization with which they were going switched their destination. She was lamenting not returning to a nation she loves, and yet remained excited for the simple fact that they were still moving to Africa. A week or so later, the organization actually cut them off. For whatever reason, they were no longer going. Her posts were so full of life, vitality--anger, disappointment, anticipation, almost grief at times. Yet they were so trusting, retaining their desire and ability to trust God would understand their hearts, their wishes to be abroad. I believe they are now somewhere in Southeast Asia. Their path had to change in order to get them to where they needed to be, a different country--a different continent, actually. And it's not like their journey is finished, is it? They might end up back in Africa, the exact country they wished to land in the first time around. Maybe the timing wasn't right on the first pass. Maybe it will be later on. Or maybe they'll love SE Asia more.

I contemplate these things constantly. Where am I supposed to be? What am I supposed to be doing? This? Am I to be here, to be librarianing? Is my restlessness legitimate, or is it just my nature to live unsettled, to long for something different, something better, something fresh? The possibilities are pretty much endless, and I could spend many sleepless nights mulling over what we should or could be doing or going or being. But that's not productive, is it?

I know this year is bound to be tumultuous. And, truth be told, we've adjusted to married life rather well, but that's not the issue anymore for me. Kyle is as much a part of my life now as I am. He's that central to my existence. But I feel imbalanced in myself. Internally. I can't pinpoint it, but I do know that it's there. The scales are tipped, but I don't know which way, or why, or how to fix it. Frustrating, as you can imagine.

I haven't been running as consistently as is needed these days, and I'm wondering if my mental imbalance isn't just a way of telling me to hit the pavement again -- every day -- to do something healthy for my body, which incidentally brings my mind to a better state of being. But what if it's not?
See what I mean? Always questions...never resting. I need to get away from here.