and life is really -- yes, really -- good.

I guess it's been awhile since I've posted on how I'm actually doing. I haven't even journalled about it much...have I been hoarding my happiness? Raking it all up like Ebenezer Scrooge and hiding it from the world, from myself? Well...yes.

I think a large part of me has felt guilty for not missing academia. For the past three years, since I switched from English Secondary Education to English, I thought of grad school as what I was born for. But then I didn't want to go. I opted for a year of bottom-feeding retail jobs over applying to graduate schools. I was ashamed, but also relieved and happy, at Notre Dame's rejection. It left me extremely confused, wondering if I'm still smart, if I'm an intellectual anymore; extremely guilty, wondering if I should despise myself for not missing syllabi, reading assignments, or term papers, wondering if I'm cutting off and throwing away some integral part of myself in (temporarily at least) abandoning the academic scene; extremely ashamed, for having failed at doing something (getting into grad school and being an instant success) when I've never failed at anything before.

A lot of those doubts I'm still working through. But I've come to a full realization of how satisfied with my life I am. It makes me more confident at meeting people -- especially having a job that I'm proud of. I'm not a misplaced cynical intellect grubbing the system while sneering at it (not that that is bad; it was dissatisfying to me because I like to believe in what I do); I'm a pioneer in the social services field and I'll tell anyone who asks about the visions I'm working to achieve.

I love what I do.

Today our most beautiful, energetic, and vigorous child, a two-year-old girl named Dajenara and called Nara unless we're trying to get her attention, was helping me wipe up some spilled water. After we'd thrown the wet paper towels away, I said, "Nara, can I give you a hug??" She yelled, "YES!" and hurled herself at me; I picked her up and swung her around and said, "I LIKE giving you hugs!" and she shouted, "I like giving YOU hugs!!!" and squeezed me so hard around the neck I choked on her shoulder.

She can be a royal pain, she can be frustrating, she can be so headstrong it makes your teeth hurt -- she's an extraordinary human being -- but she is by far the child who makes me realize how much I love what I do. I think of her big shining eyes and her gorgeous smile and her mischievous grin, her spunk and her spontaneity, her tendencies to organize the flock around her and take care of (and bully) her fellow children, her exuberance for life, and I feel so privileged to have the total trust of this awesome little person that I grin a big happy smile into the dark before I fall asleep at night.

I can't tell you what I'll be doing in ten years, or twenty, whether I'll ever be married, whether I'll have children -- anything. But I can tell you that I don't care. What I'm doing in the present is so worthwhile and fulfilling that I have confidence in the goodness of the future, without needing to think about any of it.

I have timeline goals, which helps. They are:

1. To have a house, a king-sized bed, a cat, a dog, and a new car by the time I'm thirty;
2. To embark on two years of teaching English in a rural Chinese village when I turn thirty-five;
3. To get my Master's and PhD before I'm fifty;
4. To write and teach till I'm too old to leave the house.

The rest I don't need to know about, or care about, or worry about, until it happens. What's going on now is good enough for now.

For a girl who has always banked her happiness on the future, and hated the present, this is quite a miraculous step.