10 May

How close summer balloons! And how frightening! Not only exams, of course those are frightening; but all the people, wonderful people, who are seniors, and will graduate and dissipate into the world like shaker-salt into the Atlantic: and likely I will never see them again. Oh! I hope i do not forget them. What a frightening thing; to dissipate and be forgotten! In three years the high school will not remember them; in four years they won't remember me. And Glinda and Polly and Praise Band fly up in a smoky cremation. We will be replaced, but: is it not the nature of humans to forget and be forgotten? Will i not likewise replace them? We must not hang so tightly to the things we love, for humanity is cyclical by nature; and good will be replaced with good.

It is also more than slightly disconcerting that National Merit wants me to have my top two colleges in by May 26: I spend fifteen minutes deliberating between milk brands at the grocery store. I'm supposed to pick a college?? Good Lord! But yes, Good Lord: God knows what He's doing and will show me where to go. Belmont, Samford, Auburn, Covenant, UVA run their rabbit-footprints through and through my mind.... who shall i become at each? Should i become a different person, marry someone different; will the universe expand and contract as a result of my decision? How narcissistic we become when anxious! Of course God will work what is best for his children; of course He will do this for me.

Spring has arrived in a lump, and how it satisfies! I think God's favorite color must be green. It flabbergasts me, every little detail of tree trunks and flowers and weeds-- how few people notice them, and yet how much detail God has put into each of them! To surround us so completely with beauty: how He loves us! But now i am becoming sentimental, aren't I, and sounding rather middle-aged? But why should one wait until one has exhausted one's dreams to accept what Christ offers us? Why should one waste one's life in rot, and regret?