Mysteries to Us Both

In the whole eight years I've had this blog, I have never gone a month without posting. Well, October came and went, November is going, and my posting streak is broken. For the record, I have written multiple posts in my head over the past weeks; they've just never made it down on paper, digital or otherwise. Typing them all up now, or simply synthesizing them into one, would be too time-consuming, so I'll keep them as snapshots to me, and mysteries to you. Soon they'll be mysteries to both of us, because snapshots blur with time.

I like mysteries. Lots of people like mysteries. Right now, most of the mysteries in my life are subjective: When do I want to graduate college? Do I want to stay online, or go to campus? Do I keep waiting tables for a living? If I stay with my parents, where will they be next year when the lease on the apartment runs out? Am I really going back to Italy for my internship, like Liberty approved and Samuel OK'd, or will that fall through?

They are mysteries that revolve around choices; mysteries that dissolve into Frost's "the road not taken" when I do make a choice; mysteries that depend on me and that I have as much control over as God allows. They are mysteries that, when un-mysteried, become consequences.

Tangible mysteries, that are there with or without me, are more fun. They are real roads that stay real roads even when I pass them by. One such road I've noticed. It's between here and Corning, and seeing as I've worked at the cafe in Corning six days a week, and gone to church on the seventh, for the past three months, of all the sights that have become boring because it's been every single freakin day for three months***, that road has continually piqued my interest.

Three things kept me from exploring it. First, when I did, I knew it would make the mystery go away. Second, I'm generally alone, and it's more fun to explore with friends. Third, my car. I was not altogether sure I'd make it. It's a dirt road, full of ruts, with a very steep incline up a hill through the woods, curving up, up and away out of sight into more woods at the top. In other words, my favorite kind of road. The kind of road that is not compatible with a coup, even if it's a coup that the first thing your dad had the mechanic do was raise it two inches. At least, I didn't think it was compatible.

Last week, driving home from work, I couldn't take the mystery any longer so when I drove past it for the umpteenth time, I turned around at the nearest spot (post office), drove back, and made the left turn onto the single lane road. I worried a little about getting stuck, especially as the road narrowed. Rainstorms had furrowed and loosened the gravel, but I decided getting stuck was the least of my worries. Besides, I thought, it would make a fun story. Something besides the ice cream freezer at work breaking and melting 100 gallons of ice cream all over the floor. Something besides dressing up as a unicorn for halloween. Something besides celebrating Guy Fawkes day with V for Vendetta and a bonfire. Something besides work in general and school in general.

I didn't get stuck, so I didn't get a new story.

Actually, the whole venture was rather anticlimactic. Harry powered up the hill as well as 225 horses, and I rounded the crest and discovered...I was on a private driveway, albeit one with a street sign.

Whoopdeedoo.

The house the road dead ended at was pretty boring and needed landscaping. It's a pity that such a house should be set in such epic, mysterious surroundings. Not wanting to (read: scared to) intrude, I pulled the tightest k-turn I ever have and drove back down. But not before catching my breath at the view of the valley I had risen up out of.

I drove home. Everything always ends in driving home.

I almost wished I hadn't taken that road, because now there is no more mystery. I have to find a new one. The problem is, mysteries take time to find. I've been so busy the past month, I literally have not known what to do but keep moving because if I stop, even to write a monthly blog post, my little world will cave in (if not practically, then, for some reason, emotionally). So I work, and do school, and go out for pizza and do late nights with a friend I had to say bye to, and run to clear my mind and remind myself that work pays, and school invests, and I said bye to my friend of ten years, but I'll go south to see her soon, and I am certainly not alone here in the north.

And Jesus loved me 'ere I knew Him.

***Forgive me for the self-centeredness that craves some combination of pity and admiration from you, and, besides the general human need to verbalize it and thus make myself feel better, is the true reason for writing and italicizing that egotistical phrase that makes my sentence an un-artful run-on.