oh, boy

I was washing the dishes, when my mother crept up behind me and asked, "Are you going back to school soon?"

I told her no, I wasn't.

My mother does that sometimes. She fires these questions indiscriminately at opportune times when I am completely unsuspecting and all my guards are down. It's not her fault. I guess like all mothers, she just wants to get a glimpse of whatever it is that goes on in her child's messed-up mind. I guess she just wants the reassurance that I have plans. She wants me to have plans. That's not her fault either.

There's always this tiny bit of guilt that I feel though. Every time she wonders about what my next move in life is, or when it will be, I can't help but feel guilty that I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do. She asks me, always in this sincere and caring motherly way of hers, and as much as I want to comfort her with concrete and definite plans, I can't. Because I don't have plans. And because I would hate to lie to her.

It's not an enviable position, not knowing what you want to do next when everyone else around you is getting their masters, starting their own families, becoming doctors and lawyers, stepping up and just going places.

Compared with some of my peers, I am lost. To tell my own mother that, would not be reassuring. But it would be true.

Right now however, what I really want to tell her is that- I may not know where I am going, but I have a funny feeling I'll get there.

I would tell her not to worry. I know she still would, because she's programmed to worry about her kids.

I'll tell her I'll be fine. Who knows, maybe I will be fine. And if after everything, I do end up alright and in one piece, planning will lose its overbearing importance, because I would have had kicked its ass.