Who I Am With You (Imagination #10) - Staci Stallings Page 0,196

people don’t ever do it,” someone behind her said.

Then she thought of Meow Wolf and Bishop Castle.

“But think of what we would be missing if no one ever took that leap,” she said. “Think about what we might be missing in ten or twenty years because we’re all taking the safe road right now, the path of least resistance and all of that. I mean, you can’t just sleepwalk your way into all of a sudden being creative. It’s like Professor Peters said, you have to fill yourself up with things—different experiences, movies, plays, art, even books and music. Even things like mythology and literature.”

“Everything you do and experience makes everything else mean more,” a girl down the way said. “You catch things that you wouldn’t have caught otherwise. You see things and think things that you understand differently because of everything else.”

Taylor nodded. She was glad now that she had studied American History. It didn’t make all of the references in the movie make sense, and she was sure she had missed a ton of them. But she’d caught enough to understand what was going on. “Maybe that’s what it’s about—experiencing and creating experiences. Every experience leads to more understanding. Maybe we’re just here trying to explain life to ourselves.”

“Or you just sit there and hope this is going somewhere that you want to be,” a girl in the back said, and Taylor wondered about that. It was like the Aaron Burr character. His whole plan in life was to wait for his advantages to happen. Alexander Hamilton was far more the one intent on molding life to give him advantages. In fact, in his very first encounter with Burr, his whole intention was to find out how he could put life on fast-forward, to get life going, to become a famous, remarkable person faster, to make something of his life now rather than waiting.

Burr, on the other hand, had no clear vision for his life other than he wanted to be famous. He was a stick-your-finger-in-the-air, see-which-way-the-wind-blows kind of person. That drove Hamilton crazy. In fact, he endorsed his bitter rival, Thomas Jefferson, rather than endorse his quasi-friend because at least Jefferson stood for something.

What did he say? If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

Her thoughts went to pieces and parts of her whole life—especially her relationships. She couldn’t seem to stand anywhere in relationships. She became who they wanted her to be, because that was safe and they wouldn’t reject her. How many times had she just been herself and let the chips fall where they may? Not many, if any.

It was always a show with her. Kind of a cross between Burr’s holding back to see and test the waters, and Hamilton jumping right in. She was sure everyone else would say she was someone who jumped in with relish, but inside… oh, inside it was a very different story. Inside, she was always worried that she wasn’t doing things right enough, perfect enough, good enough for them to like her. In the turmoil of always trying to do both, she had somehow lost herself, her own best navigation about who she was and how she was and what she wanted to do.

She thought about her dad, sitting at that table, about how desperately she did not want to disappoint him. How that made her not even be able to be honest about herself. Visions are dreams you do something about. When she really let herself get honest, she knew that she was working on her dad’s vision for her life, not her own. She wondered if she even had a vision of her own, or just fragments of dreams she’d never really let herself contemplate.

When class broke, she walked back to the house, lost in the thoughts of visions and dreams and who really is in control of any of it. Bits and pieces of the songs in Hamilton drove her steps forward. Why did Alexander Hamilton live like he was running out of time? Because he was, because he had almost died so young twice, because his parents had died young… or for some other reason? Was it something inside that drove him to live at the speed of light? Was it something innate or learned?

It was like his flow was only found when he was moving, progressing in life. He couldn’t sit still. He couldn’t just be as Eliza begged him to so many times. No, he had to be