It's Tense

With only a few months left in my undergrad career, I've found myself a bit stuck between times.

The farther I look into the past, the darker it seems to have been.  While this does mean that my life has been on a continuously upward trend, I still have hiccups in the present, and sometimes I wonder if the wounds I don't even remember still sting.  Bad things have happened.  Good things have happened.  I was occasionally brilliant.  I was occasionally idiotic.  The past is a mishmash of the great and terrible, and it's completely frozen.  Not a single atom twitches in the tapestry that stretches on endlessly behind us.  It's easy to wonder what the present would be like if the past were different, but alas that is an experience we can never have.  In the face of an impossible desire, some would say that it's best to just let it go.  As for me, I still see value in dreaming.

The present is interesting in the theoretical sense, because the "true present" exists in such a small time frame that we can't actually distinguish it.  So I'm considering the present to be the true present plus the relative past.  Once again a flexible definition, but that allows for extra analysis.
In a restrictive definition, I'm typing and listening to music right now.  I do love music, and have a habit of staying up late trying to find something to do so that I can continue listening.  I feel a little off, but that's why I'm writing a blog post.
In a larger sense, the present is full of tasks. I didn't really spend the long weekend in the most productive way possible, but I still got a few things done.  I'm frustrated over the difficulty to get a recommendation for my application, and I've got one last plan before I give up.  The nice thing is that whatever happens with that, I've got to move on pretty soon.
The present is uncomfortable.  I guess that's why we keep doing things.  If we were satisfied we'd relax in our stasis until time forced change upon us.

The future is basically blank.  I have a few possibilities I've considered and done some preliminary planning for, but at this point nothing is certain.  I really hate when people ask about what I'm doing afterwards because I don't have a solid answer, and feeling stupid is my second-least favorite feeling.  [Jealousy being the most horrid.]  All I know is that I want to be happy, and that I think I can get that to happen.
I don't think I have big control issues, as I can be quite fine relinquishing power to someone else, but I'm excited to have my own things.  I will always be a subject of the system, being fed by growers and preparers that I do not know, never fully able to enjoy complete solitude.  Yet I believe there to be a comfort in knowing that you make enough money to support yourself in this world.  I want to be productive.  I want a company or some such to benefit from my continued existence, even if only as a lowly peon.
And above all, as much as we'd love to marinate in perfect comfort, there's something to be said about having change.  I think I'm ready for one.