February 20th 2012

What are my intentions in this place? What have I set out to do in this place, specifically this time space that has been given to me? Do I dedicated it to myself and my well-being, regardless of its cost to all those sharing the same time space? Or do I dedicated it to others: the others who are less fortunate. Those with the quieter voices, if not mute all together? To my friends and family. Or to the men who will come and go in my life and the potential gain and loss of love that will inevitably rotate with them?


As I grow older, I understand that these intentions would adapt. I have fallen in and out of love with myself as much as any other thing I suppose, and so it only seems natural and fair to wish better or worse things for myself as the cycles complete themselves. But now, in a moment when I'm at a relative loss for self-worth and what exactly determines my own, I have also seemed to have misplaced all roots for my intentions as well.


What was the purpose of this job choice? Was it something I had pursued, or was it simply something that I accepted because it was offered to me and seemed like a better option that staying stagnant and unemployed? Now, on the verge of completing my term of service, I feel at a loss. Was my impact enough to justify doing what I did for more than 10 months along with the inevitable sacrifices I made along the way in order to continue? Was it worth trying to continue on this same career path: education and teaching? I'm not sure if I'll ever really receive an answer to any of these questions, but they feel worth asking of myself regardless.


I want to move forward into other realms of passions I posses, but I'm not entirely sure how to proceed from this time frame. I want to be a writer, but can I make it without becoming some over-developed jaded woman whose focus and point-of-view have been predetermined for her? 


Am I good enough to make it at all?


I want to cure the impending cancer of my mother's country. Bring the knowledge and insight I've gained from this experience to do just that. But nothing comes of my hours of research. And what few opportunities present themselves are outside my grasp because of my inability to speak Spanish fluently. 


From across the living room, my eyes focus on the microwave. In place of where the time should be displayed in its pixilated green text, a message scrolls from where its previous user had failed to complete their task: 


press start. 


I have no idea what half-expired meal lays waiting on the other side of that black plastic door, but I recognize how easy it would be to move forward and do just that. Press start.


My body craves a beginning. Any beginning at all. It says to me, "don't you know you're alive?"