are you ready for this?

Dictionary.com has ten entries on the word “ready.” My personal favorite is as follows:

read·y

–adjective

1. completely prepared or in fit condition for immediate action or use: troops ready for battle; Dinner is ready.

2. duly equipped, completed, adjusted, or arranged, as for an occasion or purpose: The mechanic called to say that the car is ready.

3. willing: ready to forgive.

I’ve been thinking about being “ready” a lot these days. Ready for concertmaster auditions, ready for summer, ready for graduate school, ready for life after school, ready for my test tomorrow… Somehow it always seems like I’m trying to be ready for something. Trying to be prepared and stable.

And wait for it...

A Life Lesson With Karla, brought to you by the Jenson-Noble Hall of Music: 

Life Lesson #3: There are many definitions of being “ready.” Prepared, duly equipped, willing - any way you look at it, being ready is not just one thing.

I love the idea that in order to be ready for something you have to be willing; there is a kind of grace within every situation. You've got to be willing to accept the consequences or the outcome, willing to give up preconceptions of how things are supposed to be... I've learned this week that in order to help myself be ready for something, I have to believe that no matter what happens everything will turn out just fine. 

Life goes on. 

But for me, it's difficult to accept the fact that Life goes on even after something unwanted because I'm never willing to accept that my way isn't the right way, that if it's not one way then something is wrong and things won't be the same. But that's just the point - things are never going to be the same no matter if you're ready for them or not. The constant change of Life is just that: constant. And Being Ready for anything is almost a moot point at this point in the discussion except that Being Willing brings readiness to a whole new level. If I can be willing to be flexible, to give up my fears of the future and my illusions of how life is going to work out, then I can be open to change. I want to be able to embrace whatever challenges come my way but if I'm not willing to accept that they are going to happen, I'll never be ready for them.

So, I ended up getting the concertmaster chair and scholarship, and now I feel at least 40 pounds lighter than I have all week. Just three exams and a composition away from a summer in Decorah! I go home for a week on Sunday and then move in to my house on June 1st. Looking forward to practicing, bike riding, tubing on the river, picnics with Trevor... I'm so ready for summer this time around. So ready. :-)