It's not a movie, no private screening. This method acting, well, I call that living.

Yes, it's been a long time. Today is the final day of all this work I've been doing for the past year. I will participate in what's called an "oral defense" with a group of college professors (sounds kind of kinky, huh?), to find out if I have a master's.

In the past six months, I've been on this emotional roller coaster. I never seem to know where I'm going. I know that many of my readers are younger than me and voice the same thoughts and concerns about love and life's directions. (Damn, it feels good not to be writing anything academic). I can tell all of you who are younger than me in physical age (I'm sure I'm as immature as any 18-year-old) that age does not settle you. Well, at least in my case.

I've talked a lot about my mother. Losing her six months ago was a devastating event in my life. It was always fascinating to me how this woman drew people to her like a magnet. She had this unquechable thirst for life. This outstanding quality that made her so attractive to the outside world is what haunted her in her last years. At 77, she asked over and over, "What should I be when I grow up?" She longed to move to New York City or anywhere but where she was at the present time. She and my father lived their lives that way. I never knew where I was going to wake up -- Miami, Connecticut, California. We jumped from place to place. My parents had "the grass is always greener" philosophy of life.

As I sit here contemplating where I should go, what I should do, who I should be, sometimes longing for clarity or a sense of stability, I realize that this lack of settling was one of my mother's best qualities. This refusal to settle down is what made her the kind of person who would have her clothes packed in 10 minutes if the phone rang offering a trip to anywhere. The kind of person who carried tap shoes and a change of clothes in her car, "just in case."

I truly believe that when you settle, you cease to dream. (For Christ's sake, I sound like the friggin' guy from "Flashdance" -- "When you give up your dream, you die.")

So I'm destined to be one of those women in their 40s who act and dress like they're in their 20s, who never know if they're making the right decisions but will try anything once, and who believes that the grass really is greener somewhere else.