The President's House

I am fully aware that the title of this post is fairly dramatic.
This is not a political commentary. Indeed, it is not even about "The White House" or its policies as of late. I just wanted to ramble for a moment before calling it a day, going to bed, getting up, and starting all over again (with 55 voice-mails to return first thing).
On Sunday, as church let out, I bid farewell to my cousin who had to stay to an after-the-block meeting. I stepped outside, with the intent of heading immediately home and was promptly inspired to change my course by a surprisingly pleasant breeze. The term "surprisingly pleasant" can rarely be applied to August days in UT, so I had to take advantage. I headed north instead of south and began wandering familiar pathways. I stopped in to visit my favorite campus building, deriving the most impractical pleasure from the satisfying clamor my heels made in the wide, tiled, light-infused hallways, in all their vaulted glory. I watched the small groups of people in the courtyard, about their own business, and felt quite un-purposefully fulfilled.
I eventually (unconsciously) made my way to the "Former President's Home" on campus. I believe that the Hollands were the last ones to live there. I have never been inside, though I would probably be welcome to go in now that it has been demoted from a living, breathing home to some Graduate Studies building or other. The back gate was open, so I wandered into the back yard and sat decidedly on a stone bench, facing the back side of the house. As I sat there, pondering its understated beauty and enjoying the shade, I slipped into a sort of reverie that left me with the strange feeling that I was lost in someone else's memories for a time. Memories of some time unknown to me, and people equally, if not more-so, unknown.
Then I noticed the tree. Rather, I noticed its branches, and how close to the roof and a window some of them stretched. I imagined some young soul standing in that window, getting up some scheme to escape some tyrannical great-aunt. After all, doesn't everyone with such a tree and a window have a tyrannical great-aunt? I was so entertained by the thought, I did the only thing I know to do on such occasions... I snapped a picture on my cell phone. Then I used my hand to block out the signs of all other civilization for a while, and I took in this one thing as long as I dared stay in such a state of self-indulgent day-dreaminess. When the moment was passed, I headed home, where I fell onto the couch and into a fitful nap--dreaming of that great house, with all its promises of great-aunts and great childish schemes.
I suppose I may as well admit, as I have gone this far already, that I did not dream of the aunt as much as I dreamt of myself, living there, in some quasi-horrifically, unrealistic future scenario. I dreamt up the very most idiotically impossible life-plot in my head, and shamelessly reveled in it for quite some time, falling in and out of some other dream that I don't remember now. The details were hazy at the time, and in retrospect I remember very little, except that there was a small group of young children, in some never-ending state of childhood happiness, playing with a garden hose, oblivious to the hustle-bustle of the students walking past the stone fence. Some of the particulars were quite specific, but the feeling was simply "home" where everything you could ever need is all together, and can be perfect in an "old Polaroid photograph" sort of way. Luckily for my sanity, the nap was cut short by the entrance of cousin with news of some impending visitor and I was forced to snap out of it.
I cannot say whether or not I had a happy childhood, for I am unsure. I did in that I had plenty of siblings to play with, and though we fought in turn, we loved each-other more often than we were annoyed with one another. I can say that the over-arching feeling I have when I look back on my childhood is one of a longing to get out, and to be free to make my own choices. This feeling has always been with me, as dependent of a soul as I can be at times. I fear my own choices, and yet long for them in the wildest way. As though I were afraid that if I jumped off of the cliff, my wings wouldn't work after all. They are constructed rather shoddily I fear. Can't get too close to the sun or the sea, and I wish to taste both of them.
So for now I stay on the edge of the cliff, and dream of that little house, its perfect escape tree; those three little children, mud on their socks, grass in their hair; the sound on the front step that tells me he's home; and I try to work it all in to some future reality. For now, the reality is the 50 voice mails, and the kitchen table with the varnish wearing off, impending homelessness and the promise of a new day tomorrow, with no mistakes in it. Yet, give me a few hours and I can fix that in short-order.
Might I implore my reader not to do me the dis-honor of thinking that I am one of "those women" who thinks that once you are married and have children, everything is suddenly perfect. I have six married siblings, and over 15 nieces and nephews. I have five younger siblings, and was babysitting since I was old enough to do so. Almost all of my closest friends are married, and many of them have children. I realize it's not perfection. It's just perfection in the making. It's just godhood in the making. It's just the point of our very existence.
What is my job? Just something to get me through the days. Something to ward off impending insanity, pay the bills, "teach me something", prepare me for some career-based future that I hope and pray does not exist, etc.
I went to school to be a better person. Not to get a job. I do not want to "work" in the way that the world has termed "work". I want to work in my divine-given capacity. I want to make the biggest difference I could in the world, by starting where it matters most.
When I have children, I hope they get up schemes, and I hope they get mud in their hair, and I hope I lose my mind with how difficult it is. For then I will have lost it over something worth losing one's mind for.
Law firm: You're not worth it. Sorry.