Clash of the Titans

There's this weird thing happening in my life right now where I feel like my past and my future are colliding randomly into my present...and I don't know quite what to do about it. I can't decided whether it's a good thing or a scary thing or a crazy thing or a necessary thing or a God thing or a thing that I have yet to even comprehend.

Sometimes it's strange to look back at the past. There are memories that range from instant roaring laughter to instant tears. It's amazing how vivid the mind can be when it comes to remembering stuff. They say that life is made up by a series of moments that change the course of our lives; whether it's deciding what to eat for lunch or deciding who to marry; it's all relevant to how our lives are shaped. So why do we ever look back? What good does it do us? Is it completely unhealthy or is it perhaps the healthiest thing we humans can possibly do?

The past is full of ghosts. Ghosts of failures, ghosts of friends, ghosts of family, ghosts of good things gone wrong. Why is it that the bad memories are always the ones we can remember the best? That just...sucks. I don't want to remember the time that my mom and I almost died in that car accident. I don't want to remember the time I broke my arm and couldn't go swimming all summer. I don't want to remember the time that my parents were fighting and the word "divorce" was hovering in the air. I wish that life had an instruction manual sometimes. There should be a chapter called "Ghostbusters: How to Tame those Awful Memories." God, that would be amazing. But unfortunately, no such book exists. Life has no rules. Anything can happen. Anything can linger.

I think about good things, too. I'm not some emo kid (though sometimes I think that life might just be easier that way, not gonna lie). I remember my first kiss. I remember my first "starring role" in a church play. I remember being baptized. I remember winning second in the state with my high school marching band my senior year. These kinds of memories I treasure very dearly and hold them so close to my heart. There are some memories that make me laugh so hard. Like the time my group of friends got the cops called on us at McDonalds at 1 AM, the time I slipped and fell in a mud puddle right in front of my boyfriend in 6th grade, or the time one of my good friends (who is a little short) tried to jump up on my lofted bed and fell off. I sometimes forget to count my blessings. I lead a pretty happy life.

And then my future. I was telling my friends the other day that I feel like God is about to open a lot of doors in my life. I don't know why. I just have this feeling. I don't know what is about to happen but I know that I am dying to find out (I might be eating those words later but we'll see). I'm in the second semester of my junior year. I have two more semesters of college after this and then I'm done. Yikes.

So with my memories of my past plaguing me and begging for my attention, and with my future knocking at the door, what's a girl to do? Are you there God? It's me, Melanie. WTF?