A quarter life

I'm alive, I'm alive, I'm alive!
I survived rafting this weekend. I survived a rapid called "the toilet bowl." I think it was possibly my fault that we went on the right side of the rapid instead of the left and came close to death. I can't swim, and when that wall of water hit us, I stopped paddling in favor of grabbing onto the raft. But we survived. Thank you, Uncle Caleb, for making the trip absolutely bearable!
OK. Now what?
I'm basically in love with my life right now. I work hard every day and come home exhausted, but I feel like I'm accomplishing, and that's super. I think I'm becoming more adventurous. Not only did I brave some category four rapids this weekend, but I also didn't scream in horror when I had to remove parts of a dead rabbit from my back porch (how did it even get there? Are rabbits cannibalistic?). I think this is growing up. I can change my niece's poopy diapers without flinching. I clean the moldy junk out of my mother's refrigerator without complaint. I am 100% grown up, despite feeling about 16. This must be what they call the prime of life.
Seriously, things are going well. That's not to say everything is just as I'd imagined, but I'm feeling good about the flow of my life and the direction it's taking. I like that I now instantly delete text messages from people who make me unhappy, rather than saving them and going over things again and again in my head. What's more, I like that these days when my phone buzzes, it's because it's usually someone or other I'm really excited to talk to. Ditto the voicemail. Ditto the inbox. Technology is my friend today.
And you know what else I like about being an adult? If I wanted to, I could indulge my childhood fantasy of going to McDonald's and getting a Happy Meal any time I wanted one, even though I actually only eat McDonald's food when I put my Christmas tree up each year. Now that my tastes have refined (and I'm just not into indigestion-inducing greasy food), I don't long for McNuggets like I did when I was 7. Now my money and fantasies run more toward a new blouse from Anthropologie or a pedicure or a vacation abroad. But the point is, I can do any of it. That's pretty amazing.
Don't ask me where all this empowerment comes from today. I think maybe from spending a weekend in the mountains, decoupaging trash cans. I don't know. I feel creative. I feel free. I feel rich, even though my bank would beg to differ. I feel loved even though I'm not grasping for attention from those who wouldn't give it to me anyway. I'm just in the mood to work like crazy, and then go find a performing arts space and do dramatic readings from "Knowing I Have Feeling He May Not"-- the craziest poetry an 11-year-old girl could have ever written (thank you, Alison Ann Budd! I hope we meet someday!). Even though I'm swamped at the office, in my mind I'm frolicking in a field of wildflowers, giggling to no one in particular about a joke that's funny only to me. I'm ready to start my new career as a lounge singer specializing in 80s sitcom themes. I think I ought to learn to play the guitar and the tambourine and join a cover band that only does stuff from Natalie Merchant, the Smiths, and the Mamas and the Papas. And I should hit a farmer's market so I can make those great roasted vegetables like I had in Krakow back in the day. I need to find a trampoline to jump on. I want to surround myself with my uber-funny friends: the one who runs half marathons; the one who once made out to a book on tape; the one who was convinced he was going to be kidnapped by terrorists in Mexico; the one who once told me he thought I'd be pretty even if I were naked. Everyone's life should be this full.
PS. to Ray-- I hope you had a wonderful first day at work. As I told my BFF Rainbow Bright this morning, I'm hoping you'll be able to help all those fellas who fall into the Cottonwood Gap look more like Harrison Ford and a little less like Steve Urkel.