graduation and payson and rumination

"so, what did you think about the two ceremonies, mine vs. yours?"
"well, they were alright.  you know, just graduation."
"because, i thought yours sucked!"
well, yeah, it did.  uneventful.  walked across the stage, got a placeholder and a picture to replace the high school graduation picture on top of my mom's tv.  at least this time i'm looking into the dean's eyes, rather than directly at the diploma, my prize.  two more classes this summer and the degree will be mailed, maybe still with honors.

so we had two nights of going out drinking, first to celebrate jacy, then for me.  and wends and i kept ordering shot after shot after hard cider, and sang along to madonna, and took fifteen trips to the bathroom, and when i put myself down on my bed that night the room was spinning but none of it came back up.  just a hangover and exhaustion the next day, a break from drinking and then the party that didn't really happen, more just like normal everyday friends over for dinner - which is great, which i wish would happen almost every night, except for the sadness.  but in the sadness there is truth, so maybe not excepting anything.

then plans to go camping, and someone asked "what about your family's cabin?" and it was on.  i called, got the OK, and drove out to the qc with joy to pick up the keys.  we loaded up two vehicles with people, food, wood for fires and sleeping bags, and headed up up up, urging the 4-cylinder rav over the hills.  then a little more drinking but mostly just curling up into the old beds, truck, or hard, hard ground within the tent.  breakfast and talking, some alone time in the cabin to find pieces of my grandfather - handwritten notes (prescription!!! AAA batteries  1/2 & 1/2), the wooden creations, old boots, and the cabin itself, which sits on stilts of cinder block because he wanted it that way.

then home again, home again and back to sick.  and back to finding a second job, and the gym, and my room still full of boxes, and rufus the cat who meows at night, and to roommates and friends and all the complications of life.  and i wonder if it's supposed to be cliché?  this sudden feeling of floating who-knows-where?  because i've been released again into finding a job, not knowing what i want to do.  because i will turn 30 in a few days, and i don't see myself any nearer to the things i thought i wanted.  questioning myself and being questioned, wondering about family and friendships and how these little things can hold us together at all.  is it trite because it always happens this way, no matter the resistance?  or is it trite because i am unoriginal?

and, right now, God is being so quiet i can't hear.  and i'm terrified, by the reality of that as well as the admission.