yeah, i get that feeling a lot nowadays.

'Your reason and your passion are the rudder.. and the sails of your seafaring soul. If either be broken, you can but toss and drift, or else be held at a standstill in mid-seas. For reason, ruling alone, is a force confining; and passion, unattended, is a flame that burn to it’s own destruction.'

-Kahlil Gibran

i am driven.

like the blood-pumping adrenaline of rollercoaster rides in themeparks. like the feeling you get in concerts of bands you would die for. like the rush of caffeine and formulas and concepts at three in the morning. like how i smile when i am sure i know how to get the answer in item number one, letter c. like how words from someone mean so much, like how my own words do the same to others who listen.

and though failure, disappointment, anxiety, and additional burden are such intense words, i stop and remind myself that contentment, experience, success, strength, and integrity are inasmuch, the same and probably, more significant at most.

so i remain ambitious and steadfast, remain impulsive yet vigilant. for there are many chances, many sides, and many decisions laid out in front of me and everybody else; and i chose this path for myself.

this is where i decide.

between the after-exam-aftermaths, general assembly preparations, conversations and lists in a dinner late in the evening. i try to make sense of it all--the importance of dreams, of responsibility and practicality that streches out into the real world, the constant need for time and rest. and i wonder if it would be too soon, or too late to discern such in a small period of time. i weigh what would hold most of my regret, and i ask myself: what would i miss?

this is where i need to hear it the most: the frail but unmistakable whisper inside my head amidst the loud echoing voices of the people around me. this is what i need to do alone, before saying anything else--before doing anything else.

think.

i feel it creeping in at two-thirty in the morning, after quietly locking the door behind me and turning on the lights. i hear it whisper in silence past the cars and trucks down below. and i find myself sitting down instead of creeping between sheets and into dreams, i find myself hands clasped, staring outside at the silhouette of buildings and the windows with their faint yellow-white lights, thinking, remembering, and tracing my steps, wondering why this feeling suddenly appears to clench my heart cold.

and taking a deep breath, i tell myself to get some sleep and wait for the sun's light to penetrate through the window. wait for the fog to clear and my mind's waters to calm itself to stillness. that there is no rush here like the sands of the hourglass emptying into a void below, with no way of even grasping a single grain. that there is no need to push or pull myself back from anything. and then i assure myself beyond the doubt or certainty of it all, that where i stand right now, is where i am supposed to be.