What Next?

As always, it's been a while.

I'm home now. Or at least, I'm back. State-side, I mean, back with my family, back in the house I grew up in. I'm still not really sure what to do with that.

When I started this blog I hadn't really thought about how to end it - or what to do with it after I left Oxford. To be honest I'm not sure that when I started at Oxford - or, honestly, most of the time I was there - I had considered the time after I graduated as an actual possible time that I would reach. It's not that I thought it was impossible, it's just that I didn't think about it, you know?

In any case, I guess these aren't the Oxford Comments anymore. Should I change the name? Maybe.

Right now I'm in a place that's a bit too familiar. Stuck in a rut and doing nothing. But this time - for the first time in my life - I have honest to God no idea what comes next.

Every season in my life to this point has had SOMETHING that was coming after it. It's been temporary in some way. First grades - after first comes second, third, after middle school is highschool - then semesters, after fall is spring, summer, fall again. Then there was grad school, and its terms. Then it was moving home. These periods were long or short but they were all, as it felt, inevitable. They were set. There was always at least one of them ahead of me. I knew before I finished at JBU that I'd go to Oxford. And I knew even before I went to Oxford that I would be leaving it. But now? Now I don't know. Now, I guess, I have to choose. To make it up on my own.

And it's not just the big things either, I'm having to choose what to do every day. Without any real requirements, demands, or deadlines. There is no homework, no project, and no date at which I know that I will be moving on. It's... freeing, and unnerving, and paralyzing all at once.

So far I've been spending my time on some projects that I thought up while I was away, but never had the time or resources to pursue. I've been working on some cosplays for the first time, and binging TV shows that I didn't have access too in the UK. I've also been applying for jobs. So many I've completely lost count of when and where. But no one has gotten back with me yet. Not even I say that don't want me. My attempts to call people to make inquiries have also not gone well. Lots of answering machines and no returned calls.

I need work. I need to have an income, I need to gain experience, and I need something to do with my time before I go mad. But it's not the specific struggle of finding a job that's heavy on my mind right now. Although that is getting frustrating. It's just a complete lack of purpose.

People have been asking me - as they have been for the past several years - what I want to do. In the long run. If I want to teach, that sort of thing. And I've been saying yes. I've been saying yes I'd quite like to teach at the undergraduate level - but I've been saying this mostly because it's easier to have an answer, and this one might be true. It was true a few years ago. And life would be easier if it were still true now.

In reality though I don't know what I want. And this morning in church I realized something else. What it really comes down to is that I don't want to have to make it up myself. I want a mission. A commission. A personal directive. And not a grand big-picture, general principles thing either. I want someone - alright lets be real here not just anyone, I want the Author of the Universe himself - to just flat out tell me what to do, and how to do it.

Thing is, I know me. I know that I have a disgust of discipline and an idiotic and selfish drive for unearned independence. So even if he did, I would more than likely whine and complain and hate it.

I know I keep coming back to this, but I think that's why I like Joan of Arc so much. Her mission  was so clear cut. You WILL do this thing. You must do this very specific thing. That's what I want. A more specific commissioning - for someone ELSE to tell me how I fit in and what my skills are, not just a "do good", you know?

I've gotten more and more into content creation recently - podcasts I mean. I've overcommitted, to be honest, but I'm excited for these projects. I'm not confident in them - in me, I mean. But I'm glad they are happening. I don't know how I would make THAT my main focus, my job even. I'm not sure I'd be up to it.

I think what it really is is that I hate the idea of doing a job just so that you can pay the bills and do something ELSE (that is a job in and of itself) for your "real" life. And I know that for millions of people, that's every day life. But I find something about it so essentially wrong, you know? And I think I am right to. But I am sure that I don't have to right to let that stop me from doing it anyway. I am sure that in reality I need to suck it up and function like everyone else does in this world.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this blog. I've also considered making a second blog, one that would be less personal and more focused on the art and fictions I enjoy and my thoughts on them. Just to give me an outlet that isn't ranting and rambling to my friends who haven't even seen the show or played the games I'm talking about, and making them listen to it all. I don't know if anyone would even read it but at least it'd be written down. If you've got a title suggestion I'd love to hear it. It would probably be as lose and unedited as this. Which probably isn't the smartest way to do things.

Thanks for continuing to read these. I guess I have to assume that you're reading this, in order to tell you that. If you've any thoughts on what I should do - with the blog I mean, but I suppose in life in genaeral, I would LOVE to hear them. Please. I need some correspondence here.

Thanks,
Rissa

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Praise him above ye heavenly host. Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.