I'll get a female cat and "Annoushka" to my heart's content

My first alarm clock (of four, in case you were wondering) will go off in exactly 3 hours and 31 minutes. I may or may not wake up to it (or the three that will follow). Not only is the stifling heat in a house with a broken-down air conditioner a bit too much to fall asleep to, I also stayed up much too late reading a frilly, teenage-girly book about an exiled Russian countess hiding as a servant in England. Of course, there is the inevitable falling in love with a handsome man. What can I say? My taste in reading never quite "grew up." I will always find children's and young adult books much more interesting than grown up books. This one was full of wonderful bits of Russian: dousha...mylienkaya...Annoushka. I loved it. In fact, I am now possessed by an overwhelming desire to name a daughter of mine Anna, just so I can call her Annoushka. Although, I think that in revealing this, I just condemned myself to a life of daughter-less spinsterhood. So be it. I'll get a female cat and Annoushka to my heart's content.

I've recently begun pondering the paths we take in life

More precisely, I ponder my path, how it has not led where I, or those around me, previously hoped and expected. I consider the reasons for that, and most days I conclude that it must be three parts the result of my own disastrous decision-making and one part providence. I find I don't want to alter my long-held plans for who and where I would be in my adult life. But I also find I must do so, although living in a different set of life plans, a different path, feels very much like donning an article of clothing that just doesn't fit quite right. I remind myself that while the path I've come down and the path ahead may be steeper and slower and generally less comfortable than others, it is still my path. Mine alone. And I am learning to trust that someday, perhaps when my years are very, very ripe, I will wake up to find that all of the pieces will have slid neatly into place and that I am exactly where I need to be.

"One may not reach the dawn save by the path of the night."
~Kahlil Gibran