Believe it or not, I’ve been awake since 9:30 this morning. Is this what normal people do? Now it’s 1:20, also in the morning, and I’ve had so much coffee that my legs are periodically going into twitching fits. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I were having a religious experience, a la big tent revival. I really think I’ve been overdoing it on the caffeine lately, but considering it’s been two weeks since I’ve had a piece of bread and even longer since I’ve heard from Zac Efron, a cup of joe is about the only fun left in my life. Still, I should probably drink some water, maybe say a prayer to help get me off the ceiling and balance things out. But so long as I’m all jittery, I plan to use the extra energy to get me through tonight’s blog.

This afternoon I saw my therapist, and during a discussion about personality traits that I might have but not be aware of, my therapist mentioned Johari’s window. Johari’s window is “a therapy thing” that says each of us is divided into four basic sections, which are: 1) the parts we know that others know too, called the arena, 2) the parts we know that others don’t, called the facade, 3) the parts others know that we don’t, called the blind spot, and 4) the parts nobody knows, called the unknown. As I understand it, the arena is where we’re authentic, the facade is where we’re “fake as hell,” and the blind spot and the unknown are where we don’t know our own shit from Shinola. And whereas I guess we all hang out in each quadrant from time to time, I’m assuming the goal is to know and be open about as much as yourself as possible and, therefore, spend most your time in the arena.

After therapy I spent the day at the library. Y’all, I honestly think the library is a sacred space for me. While I was there today, I started and finished a book about forgiveness, but I kept getting up every so often just to roam the aisles and be near the other books. I even explored the children’s section, where I ended up reading two books on the floor with my legs criss-cross, applesauce. Just before I left, I checked out two adult books, so now my pile of “books I’m currently reading” makes me look like a post-graduate student.

One of the books I checked out was called Expect Great Things. Having such clear instructions, I deliberately got my hopes up. Well, the book is about Henry David Thoreau, I’m already fifty pages in, and I honestly think it would have been better to call it Expect Mediocre Things. I mean, it’s well done and I’m enjoying it–don’t get me wrong–I just think the author could have set the bar lower and left more room for being pleasantly surprised. But I guess a book with “mediocre” in the title wouldn’t have exactly flown off the shelf and into my hands.

Honestly, I don’t know that much about Thoreau, so I’m excited to read the rest of the book. I do know that he went to the woods because he wanted to live deliberately and that he said, “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer,” and these facts alone make him a hero in my world. I used to have this fantasy that one day I’d do something like going to the woods–pack it all up, live in a log cabin, and spend all day reading. You know, keep away the neighbors by never bathing. Okay, maybe not that last part, but I have always loved the idea of being in nature and getting to know myself, looking through as many of my window panes as possible. But that’s not gonna happen, I’d think. Who has time to read all day?

Maybe you see where this is going.

Sometime between checking out the book on Thoreau and writing tonight’s blog, I realized that in a lot of respects, I’m currently doing what Thoreau was doing. Granted, the spare bedroom at my parents’ house isn’t exactly Walden Pond, but it is the place where I’m learning to live deliberately. Put another way, it’s where I’m learning to live in the arena of authenticity, to be myself. And I guess sometimes I give myself such a hard time about not doing what everyone else is doing the way everyone else is doing it that I forget they hear their drummers and I hear mine. Like, Wait a damn minute–I’m not supposed to do things like other people–because I’m not other people–I’m me.

As I’ve said before, I worry a lot about what’s going to come next and about earning a living, but my therapist says that when you follow your bliss, it always pays off. Not that I don’t believe her, but I’m curious to see how it worked out for Thoreau, if he had anything to say about the matter. But considering I’m already happier than I ever have been and am currently getting to spend my days as I want to, in sacred spaces with piles of books to read beside me, my sense is that things have already been paying off and I simply haven’t been acknowledging it. Maybe we all do this–wake up every day, go through our routines, and expect the mediocre. We say, Oh, that’s just my life, and we end up taking our Walden Ponds for granted. But I’m reminded tonight that when we expect great things, we see great things–great things that are right here, right now.