The Great Perhaps

The poet François Rabelais's last words were, " I go to seek a Great Perhaps."  Like Pudge who quotes these words in the novel Looking For Alaska by John Green, I didn't want to wait until I died to seek the Great Perhaps.  Like him, I thought it could be found in this life.
When I first read the book, I was getting ready to come out to Southern Utah University.  I thought of this educational journey as my Great Perhaps, since I really had no idea what I was doing.  (Hell, I still don't!)  I had only a vague idea of what the campus looked like, no earthly idea as to what the town was like, and, the scariest bit, no idea who I was going to be living with and who I was going to meet.  I had never moved out of Parkersburg, WV, and so for the first time in my life, I was going to be completely on my own in a place I had never even visited.  At the time, I couldn't think of anything scarier or more exciting.  Once I hit the middle of August, my life would become one great big Unknown.
To some extent, I still agree with my younger self.  Moving to Cedar City was a perhaps, but it was only a small one in the grand scheme of things. The Great Perhaps is not one solitary event.  It is continuously going on.  I believe now that the true Great Perhaps also goes by another name: LIFE.  Life is scary.  Just when you think you have it all worked out, it dumps another mountain of challenges and complications on you and skips away gleefully as it laughingly says, "Have fun figuring all that out!"  And ya know what? I look forward to figuring it all out.  I'm still excited and scared for it, but I'm ready for the unknown of this life long journey.