merrily merrily merrily merrily...

     Today is my first day back in New York, and even after spending the day with my entire family at home, baking, while being snowed in, I'm still scratching my head while thinking about how I have gotten here. 

     After a cancelled final and a declared snow emergency yesterday, I made the split decision to  move myself out of DC within a single day.  I placed 8 months worth of stuff (pretty much everything I have aside from clothes and shoes) into storage (not as simple as it sounds), took a math final exam (not as simple as it sounds), and packed myself along with all of my stuff (and my friend katherine, and all of her stuff) into a two door civic, where we drove 4 hours to jersey (with my knees in my chest pressed up against the dashboard, along with katherine's plant sitting on top of them) and then another hour and a half trip back to new york (definitely as bad as it sounds).  Now here I am, in my bed at home, with extra baggage from this passed semester still hanging over my head-a philosophy final exam to be taken from home tomorrow morning as a result of this crazy weather.   Aside from this though, I'm thrilled to be back in New York.  I can't wait to get this exam behind me so I may actually have some time to think straight before boarding the plane to move to England in two weeks.  While passing the skyline last night it struck me that within a two week span I will have moved between three of the greatest cities in the world, Washington DC, New York, and London. Hey Mom, check me out!  Hey Me, check me out! It amazes me every single day how blessed this life is...

   Today, upon reading a random quote, I came across the old rhyme I used to sing and dance around to as a child:  

Row, row, row your boat, 

Gently down the stream,

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,

Life is but a dream...

   Upon analyzing it and even researching into its significance, since I tend to do that to everything, I realized that the meaning behind this short rhyme is more profound than any child singing it may come close to grasping.  This poem about life symbolizes the diligence and unity that it takes in rowing (the coordinated effort between myself and my professor to get out of DC before the storm.  Katherine telling me that she would not leave DC without me, or all of my stuff and that we would make everything fit even despite all odds against that happening, and my parents meeting me halfway, as they are always so willing and kind in doing).  "Gently down the stream" signifies that our paths and our decisions are possibly more confined than we realize, and that there are things that are out of our control, the direction of our lives may not always be understood to us but yet our lives don't wait for us to choose when it is the right time to act, we are always in motion and always heading towards an end, even when we don't understand how exactly we are getting there.  Finally, we must be "gentle" and "merry" in our handling of this realization.  Even when we feel confined or confused, our disposition upon executing how we will act during a tough situation can make all of the difference.  And lastly, perhaps the most striking aspect of this short nursery rhyme is the last line which deems that "life is but a dream."   I could write a long commentary on what I believe that to mean and how I believe that its applicable in my life, however, I think it's best that you, whoever you are reading this, finds their own meaning for this profound ending, and you figure out how it applies to your life.  It may strike you just how wise the words you spoke before you even knew the meaning of words, can explain your life as it is undoubtedly unfolding before you today... it sure did so for me.

   On that note, every day is an experience to learn from, and from this experience I have learned that people, nursery rhymes, and even we can surprise ourselves, and that in the end its not a matter of worrying or contemplating about how we will get to these ends that we have in mind, its a matter of appreciating the experiences that we gain while finding our way to them.  It's also understanding that even when things seem overwhelming, crammed!, stressful, or any other feeling we experience when facing challenges, we musn't always take ourselves, or our lives for that matter, too seriously whereas it wont change the path we are on, it will only make it harder to travel down...if we spend too much time focusing on the wrong parts of this journey, in the end we may merely come to realize that Life is, in fact, just a dream...

I got in to Christ Church.  If life is just a dream, it is surely a brilliantly blessed one.