Monday, October 22, 2012

home[s]

People laugh when I say "home" in reference to my dorm room. They think it's funny that I call it that, when everyone else says "dorm" or "room". But to me, that just sounds awkward.

And it's true, it has become my home.

Not just my room, but the whole place.

The campus, the people, the community that I have become a part of.

Feeling like I fit in a place, that's what makes it home to me.

That's not to say that my other home, the one I inhabited for almost 18 years, is any less of a home.

It's just....different.

In ways that I can't describe, that I wasn't really even aware of, until I got here.

Home.

This too, is my home.

This place where I fit and I know the routines and ways of existing.

I know this community as well.

It's been interesting, these few days of figuring this all out.

This fact that I now have two homes.

Two equally important places, but so completely different.

I also think that part of the difference stems from me.

I hadn't really thought I'd changed at school, not that I'd given it much thought.

I was still me.

Yet being here, I can feel the differences. The parts of me that don't quite fit with how I used to exist in this space.

I'm different.

And now it's a matter of reconciling the two different me's, within the two different homes.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

on optimism

In general, I think I'd say I land somewhere between an optimist and pessimist.

Mostly because I think an optimist has to be someone who smiles constantly and is irritating in their constant happiness and positivity.

I am all for positivity, I just don't think it needs to be constant. We're all allowed to be negative and feel bad. That's part of life. Part of the balance.

However, I do choose to see the good in people.

I see the good in situations.

I really firmly believe that it will work out in the end.

One of my favorite quotes is Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end. 

I love this.

I'm finding that here, though, it's not necessarily the cool or expected thing to be an optimist.

Just like you shouldn't talk about it if you don't have much homework.

You're expected to always be swamped, and always talk about how swamped you are.

I get that.

I need that sometimes. Desperately.

I also get really sick of it.

We all need, and deserve, a break.

A place to be happy or positive or optimistic or without homework.

An environment in which I feel like I can talk about my good day, without glares or the need for apologizing.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Make It a Priority

I am a firm believer in choice.

(I'm not talking in the political way, I don't really want to get into that here.)

I mean in the way that we go through our life making choices.

Big ones, small ones, ones we don't notice, ones that consume us.

All these choices come together to form a whole.

Our choices cannot be denied or pushed off onto others, because they are wholly and completely ours.

Now to some this may seem a daunting concept.

The idea that we must take responsibility for every little thing we do throughout the day.

I agree.

That's terrifying.

It's also incredibly liberating.

It means that I have the choice to say no.

I have the choice, it is all mine, what I do when.

I got this very simple, but amazing idea, from a nurse at the hospital.

She was talking to a patient, who had come in for something small, but actually had much bigger, chronic medical problems going on.

These were problems he was choosing to ignore.

She took his hand and told him he needed to make his health a priority.

That "make it a priority" is what I love.

It is what reminds me that I choose what is important and what is not.

And that if something is truly important, I will find a way to make it happen. 

Because that is my choice. 

Sunday, October 14, 2012

18

Eighteen.

Adult.

Legal.

I can do a lot of things I couldn't before.

Many of them I have no interest in doing.

But that's beside the point.

I can.

In the eyes of the law, I am now old enough to be a part of this society.

I get to help make decisions, and I'm also responsible for my own decisions.

I'm legal.

It's all on the record now.

This feels like a big one.

Some are just another year.

A good reason to celebrate.

This one, though, this one feels different.

Maybe that's just because I'm told it should be different.

No, but it is.

And that's about all I know.

I know I am so ridiculously happy for it to be my 18th birthday.

And really, what more do I need to know than that?

Saturday, October 13, 2012

songs

I really don't know why this would be interesting to anyone other than me. But here it is. Because I've wanted to do this for a while. I wouldn't necessarily call these my favorite songs, but when I look back, they're what I remember listening to on a constant loop. I think it's interesting to look back and see what the music I was listening to said about me. 

6th grade:
Wake Me Up When September Ends

7th grade:If I was being honest:
I'm With You.

If I wasn't:
Breakaway.

9th-11th grade (aka when I was sick):
World Spins Madly On
Unwell
Bicycle vs. Car
That Time of Year

11th grade: Ring the Bells
Awake My Soul

Senior year:
It's Time

Prom/graduation/end of senior year:
We Are Young

Summer after senior year (driving home after late nights at the hospital):
Somebody That I Used to Know

End of summer/beginning of college:
Home

Now: ???

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

change

Things have changed around here because I've changed.

This started even before I got to college.

I don't know how much it came through here, but I certainly felt it.

I had all these huge life changes and a busy life and amazing things and hard things.

But somehow it seemed like I didn't know how to put them into words.

Or if I even wanted to.

I didn't have the desire to share every detail here.

Well, I did, but it would have just been a laundry list of what I'd been doing. There's no point to that. No one cares. It's the stories behind the things that matter.

My theory (just because I haven't been here doesn't mean I've stopped psycho-analyzing myself) is that I started experiencing, instead of watching.

My senior year I feel like I reentered the world.

I became an active person who could participate and truly live.

I started to find my own people, ones who I saw every day.

And that led to me not being here as much.

This blog started as a way for me to express myself and feel like I was connecting and interacting with the world in some way.

I'm not saying you or this space are no longer important, I'm just saying I've changed.

And I'm still trying to figure out what that change means for this space.

Saturday, October 6, 2012

again

Can I just say this again?

Because it's still true.

Except this time it's the biggest party of the year.

Trust me, I'm not just "tired."

I just don't have a better word to describe it.

And also some other stuff.

Less bloggable stuff.

Because you know, they are actual people, these people who are taking up so much of my head space.

And, you know, I would like to one day be employed.

Sigh.

Good night.