catching up

I have changed.

So much.

I feel it deep within me. And I love it.

When I'm here, with my friends, talking about the present, I don't notice it. It's just who I am. It's who I've always been to them.

It's when I talk to people back home. That's when I notice it.

Because they haven't seen me change. For them, it hasn't been a gradual process. It's sudden and huge. And to me, they're still the same people that I left. In my head, I'm the one who left, so that means I'm the only one who's changed.

I notice it when I try to catch them up.

When I think about all they don't know about me, about my life.

Trying to describe it all, trying to put it into a nice little package, that's hard.

There is no way to do it. I don't fit into a nice little box.

I don't even know where to start.

living

Sometimes I am astonished by the pain that people carry around. Their histories and stories that lie hidden beneath the surface.

I am awed by the pain that people feel and experience.

I am saddened by it too.

Shocked.

I am impressed by people's ability to survive.

To function.

To live.

I am constantly shocked by people's stories, because it is so easy to judge and make assumptions about someone based on their outward appearances. But really, I should know better than most that what is on the outside is almost certainly not the whole story.

I am impressed by people's ability to see and find the good.

To see the beauty and take the time away from the pain to capture the beauty.

I need to be reminded that to be human and to truly live means to feel. To feel the euphoria and the excruciating.

Both are equally important.

Both make us human.

the vast world of the interwebs

There are so many places I am on the internet.

I exist on Facebook and here and another shared blog and school websites and professional websites.

They are all me, yes, but sometimes I get sort of confused as to which me I am embodying at the moment.

There are so many different facets of me, of my personality, and not all of them are pieces that I choose to share in every place. Either because of personal choice or merely the audience.

Sometimes, when I flip from one to the other and back again, from anonymity to full name and birthdate, I get confused. I get lost as to who I am supposed to be when and where.

I understand that part of this comes with the territory.

In many ways it is no different than keeping my personal and professional life different. Switching from class to interview to friends. All those people see me, but they don't see everything about me.

I think it just feels different online because there are so many different places and it is so easy to flip back and forth between them all.

It can start to feel like I'm getting a little lost in amongst all the descriptions of me.

That somewhere in all those adjectives and adverbs and long sentences, my true essence gets lost, because I am so preoccupied trying to figure out which true essence I'm supposed to be displaying.

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.

Hello World

I am [insert adjective here].

But mainly avoiding homework.

Turns out I have nothing else to say.

Because all I've been thinking and talking about is Bio and it would really be nice if I could just forget about it, even for just a little while.

My big Saturday night plans involve some friends and a yet-to-be-decided-on movie.

Until then we are supposedly doing homework.

Ha.

I think I've done as much organizing as I can. Which is my go-to mode of procrastination.

I'm an interesting mix of always being on top of and ahead of things, while also being a very good procrastinator.

I much prefer how I feel when I'm ahead of things, but, you know.....

Okay, I'll make you a deal.

I will sit down (wait, I'm already sitting down) and work on this essay for 40 minutes. And then I will do something else. Something fun. Like reading blogs. Except I've been such a good procrastinator that my reader is empty and that's just sad.

So while I'm hard at work, you all work on some blog posts! My procrastination needs you!

one sentence paragraphs, among other things

I don't know when I started changing how I wrote.

But at some point I made the unconscious decison that I liked to write in short paragraphs. As in paragraphs that are one sentence long. That's how my brain works; I think every little thought deserves to be special and get its own paragraph. But I also like how it reads because then it makes each thought, each sentence, important.

However, this is not the college style of writing.

Nor was it the high school style of writing.

And I managed to display this lovely skill of mine on the first college homework assignment.

Awesome.

***

In other news, I'm slightly, okay, a lot, afraid of my Bio class now. After one class.

Again, awesome.

There was just so much. 

So much material, so many pictures that don't fit nicely into my notes, so many new procedures, so much responsibility, so much "figure it out yourself". I always have liked that style much more than the "let me spoon feed you" approach, but right at this moment? My mind is spinning. I'm scared and overwhelmed.

Also, did I mention the classes are three hours long?

If you weren't aware, that's a really, really long time.

***

It really is enjoyable to write with terrible grammar and syntax and whatever-it's-called and not care and be able to call it artistic expression.

Here

I'm here!

And not only here as in still alive, but here as in here at college.

As in I am soon to be spending the night in my room for the third night.

As in all the upper classmen arrive tomorrow and it's a little scary.

Because I feel like I'm just starting to get the hang of things, and then tomorrow, everything's going to change. Again.

And classes haven't even started.

That's a whole new ballgame, I know.

As was registering for them.

I sit here typing this, at my desk that is next to my dresser, both of which are tucked under my bed. My desk is messy. Or at least messy in my book. I know that doesn't always translate to messy in other people's worlds.

My light is on, hurting my eyes a little bit.

The room is quiet, except for some people coming and going out in the hall. Not in a loud obnoxious way, but in a other people live here sort of way.

My alarm is set late, all things considered, for tomorrow morning.

I will try to sleep, even though I will probably sacrifice breakfast in the process.

And then I will fill the hours until 2, or whenever that one meeting that that one paper said I needed to go to.

Then I will ask directions to this new building, because as much as I feel like an experienced college student walking across campus to the dining hall, I know I'm not.

After all, I'm just a first year. And it's just my third day.

where to start?

I don't know where to start.

Last night was a late night.

Not so much with the sleep, but lots of packing. Organizing. List writing.

As was this morning.

My last fish is gone. His new home is a first grader classroom. Where I am sure there will be debates over whether he is, in fact, a he.

My room is really quiet. No filter running.

I can't bring myself to take my posters off the walls.

Not yet.

I can't bring myself to think about the fact that my friends are spreading all over the country.

That soon I'll be in a whole new state.

I can't believe how fast this is all happening.

All at once.

I want to be in that place of "I can't wait!!"

I want to be excited and ready and jumping out of my skin to leave.

I still seem to be stuck in shock.

Disbelief and sadness.

What have I gotten myself into?

Crisis of Blogging

I guess you could call it a crisis of blogging, this thing I'm having.

I don't want to write just for the sake of writing. I don't want this place to become some place I have to come and have to write for.

I also feel an obligation to my readers. The amazing people who have supported me and written to me and encouraged me. The ones who, even though we've never met in person, I have included in my extended family.

I have ideas. I have things I want to say.

I just have no drive or desire to come here to share them.

I came up with this theory the other day. After getting home from a trip and wanting to come here and share where I'd been and what I'd done and all the pictures I'd taken. I wondered if this was something I did to reassure myself, or to work things out (I know this is true. I only said a hundred times.) and that now I go out and live and work it out as I go.

I have more people in my life, physically, day to day. I work things out with them. They have become my sounding board.

Except I'm realizing as I write this that I still have stuff to work out. Obviously.

And I'm still pretty fond of psychoanalyzing myself.

I don't know where I'm going with this.

Just wanted to let you know what's going on.

Except I didn't really say anything, did I.

Big Stuff

There are big things on my mind.

Things like what classes I should take this fall.

And how I should be filling out the "All About Me" form.

The one that asks deep questions about me that will require some actual thought.

I'm really not interested in thinking. At the moment.

Things like this fire.

The hundreds of people who have lost their homes.

How lucky I am.

How I actually feel about it all.

Because I think it's pretty well known that to get through I go into "don't think about it" mode.

Which is great, because it gets me through the moment.

It allows me to do what needs to be done without being emotional.

But still, looking around at my house and knowing that what I might never see it again--that's big.

I know, intellectually, that it's big.

But I don't think that emotionally it's sunk in that it's big.

Or maybe I just think it should be big.

Whatever.

Big stuff on my mind, so I am going to continue listening to show tunes and not thinking about the big stuff.

Because it's big and I clearly don't yet know how I feel about it.

That one place where a title's supposed to go

I don't know what I'm feeling.

It's up down left right.

All over the place.

And changing constantly.

I've written a few posts and then promptly deleted them.

Because they didn't say what I really meant.

Which is funny because I don't know what I mean.

I graduated high school.

Don't ask me how I feel.

I don't know.

I had one year with these people.

These amazing, beautiful people.

Who, on the one hand, I may never see again. It was one year.

On the other hand, I feel like I really connected with some of them.

There are times where I feel left out and unknown.

Times when I'm grateful for this opportunity to have met everyone.

Times when I feel so loved and included I can't believe it's only been a year.

Times when I regret I didn't have more time.

I haven't written because I haven't known what to say.

But I miss it.

And I think while sometimes stepping back and just letting things be can be beneficial, I think in this instance, I've hurt myself.

Writing is my way to process.

Without it, I've only been spinning my wheels.

a break

I have found that lately, I haven't had much to say.

Or just not here.

Okay, none of that is true.

I haven't been writing. At all.

And I miss it, sure, but it's also been a lovely break.

Sometimes I love something so much that I want to do it all the time and forget to give myself a break.

This time life intervened and made me take a break.

I just didn't have the time, or energy, or brain space to write here.

And now?

Well when I think of it, it still feels like a to-do.

So I've continued to eat popsicles and read and do a whole lot of nothing.

Which has been quite fantastic.

I'll be back.

You know I will.

the end of the year sappy-ness is starting

In my room, my graduation gown is hanging. With my dorky mortarboard and colorful cords. Just waiting.

Two weeks.

Tomorrow I take my AP Calculus test. I don't remember how much I've said about all that business here. Mostly because I've been talking about it incessantly everywhere else. And it's been sort of nice to take a break from thinking about it all.

Friday is my last day of observation in the hospital. Writing the final essay is just making me sad.

But also confirming everything that it's taught me.

But mostly the sad thing.

Maybe that's where all this end high school emotion is going. Because I gotta say, I'm not feeling much of it about high school. It just feels like another stepping stone, or some days, a big hoop to jump, on my way to something new. Something bigger.

It feels like I've only been at this school for a year. This one year where I've really started over in many ways. With friends. With classes.

Leaving everything else behind.

Or at least trying to.

Pretending to.

And although I've made some friends, some really great friends, actually, I'm ready to move on.

I'll remember them, think of them fondly, send them Christmas cards. But I don't feel very attached, at least in the long term. I knew going in that it was going to be one year. And so, while I didn't hold myself back, I also knew this was coming.

And now that it's upon me, I am more than ready.

All Alright, We Are Young, and all the other song titles that relate to me at this moment

Tonight is prom. My senior prom. And I keep wondering how I got here.

I was here the whole time, but somehow I wasn't. I was too busy focused on me and getting better and sometimes just getting through the day to notice that the world was still going on around me.

That I kept accruing credits, enough to graduate, in fact.

Just because my world stopped didn't mean that the whole world halted.

I've been listening to Fun. (the band) a lot. All Alright, Carry On. It's the kind of music that makes me want to dance and sing and shout from the rooftops that yes, it is all alright.

So. Prom.

I have the dress. Nails are drying. A friend is coming over to do my hair and makeup. Going out to dinner. Taking pictures. And then....I don't really know what happens after that.

Whatever happens, happens.

I have no clue what that will be. I sure hope it'll be good.

But I'll be here, part of the crazy world, to experience it.

Let It Go

I think many times, the best thing one can do is to let it go. Whatever "it" happens to be. Because most of the time we won't get closure or a nice pretty bow with an "I'm sorry". So you have to find a way to deal with it and move on. Otherwise it will fester and grow and mutate and generally make things pretty miserable.

Trust me.

So you gotta let it go.

Which, yes, is much easier said than done.

Trust me.

And it is also the worst possible thing you could ever possibly say to anyone. Ever. If they're telling you all about their problems and you're sitting there thinking they should just get over it, resist the urge to say that.

Say nice, comforting things.

Just don't tell them to get over it.

I think that might be even worse than telling them to let it go.

You can only really let go once you've stopped thinking those three words over and over. Only once it's no longer a conscious action, the letting go.

Only after time. Lots and lots of time. And backward progress. Ups and downs.

Then maybe, one day, you'll realize that by letting go of making yourself let it go, you truly did let it go.

Problems

Every person deals with stuff. And the only person who really knows what that is, and how it is affecting them, is that person. It's great to pretend to walk in their shoes, or be a really good listener, but there's no way to really know. 

And when you are dealing with something hard or difficult, it's easy to feel like no one else gets you and that you are going through the hardest thing in the world and no one else can compare. Even when you remind yourself of the people living without basic needs being met. Like food and water and shelter. Or even the less basic needs that I am lucky enough to have. Like having a computer and internet and a blog where I can vent about my problems.

Anyhow.

We all have problems.

But seeing as how I'm really talking about my problems and perceptions (that's my new theory on life: that everything, everything depends on your perception), I might as well say "me" instead of "we".

Anyhow. 

All I really wanted to say with all this is that it's good for me to be reminded of other people's problems. It is so incredibly easy to get so wrapped up in my life and my issues that I forget that other people have problems too. That no matter what the problem looks like to the rest of the world, the feelings that we have as a result of it are just as real as people with other problems.

And now I've sort of lost track of what I was saying.

I think it's good for me to get out of my own head and life and just recognize what other people go through. To recognize that I'm not the only one who is good at getting dressed and going out and looking fine, just fine.

at the hospital

I walk down the long, empty hallway, considering the night. I'm trying hard to convince myself otherwise, but it felt a little tame. A little bit of a let-down after the past two weeks. No traumas that actually needed anything. Certainly not like the guy who was shot in the head, or the other guy who was stabbed. Everyone was telling me I should have been there earlier; it was crazy!

But my night consisted of more waiting than I would have liked.

While waiting for my mom to arrive, I sit down and start writing in my notebook. During the traumas I was writing obsessively, but when I was watching blood being drawn, or the woman's heart being stopped, my notebook was sitting on the counter, forgotten.

I get into the car. I start off slowly, explaining how the person who had a knife in their butt hadn't needed surgery after all. Which is good, for the patient. But I was disappointed.

As I talk, I start remembering more about my evening. I realize that while nothing was crazy like a guy who had been shot in the head, I still got to see some pretty cool stuff.

The prize winner was definitely the three partially severed fingers. Seeing bones poking out of his flesh, the nails intact on one side, and then turning over his hand and seeing halfway through the flesh on the other.

And although the heart being stopped was cool, it was also anticlimactic. You wouldn't have been able to tell the woman had anything more than bad heartburn going on. But the print out of her heart rhythm? Seriously cool.

It may not have been filled with running and screaming and dying. (Which is good for the patients. I recognize it's slightly sick and twisted and morbid when I'm wishing for a guy to be shot in the head. Let's clear that up--I'm not wishing for anyone to be hurt. But I know they will be hurt, and so I would like that to happen while I am standing at the charge desk, wondering what to do.)

But that's part of the experience too. Every day is different, and you never know what you're going to get. And above all, it's a huge privilege to be allowed to even see the blood being drawn. To have this experience at all, and as a high school senior, I'm still trying to wrap my head around it all.

on contrary-ness and writing

I don't like being told what to write. How to write. When to write.

I've discovered that with my blog; as soon as I gave myself permission to not feel guilty or obligated, the quality of my writing jumped. More of me was translated into the words, to my reader.

And I'm discovering that with my English classes this year. I thought that it was the genre of Creative Non-Fiction that was giving me such troubles.

Nope.

Our current unit is fiction/short story. Which I thought I would be pretty good at. I write fiction. Many of my posts are short, self-contained stories.

I even have lots of ideas for stories wirtten down. Whether they're just ideas, or the first few paragraphs.

My problem is not a lack of ideas. Or creativity.

(Although I do find it difficult to continue a half-written story. It's hard to remember exactly where I was going with it. Hard to get in the same mindset, so the writing style will match. Hard, but I've done it. Just not for school.)

So I must conclude that my issues stem from being told what to do. And how to do it.

I don't like being told what to do. It makes me contrary and grumpy. Which makes me procrastinate. Which gives me writer's block. (Or maybe it just makes me think I have writer's block.)

Whatever the cause, I need help. Advice. What do you do when you have writer's block? When you're procrastinating? Will you write my short story for me?

Pretty please?

***

My first post over at Miss Unlimited is live today. I would really appreciate it if you would pop on over and say hi!

Stuck

I am having a really hard time with my creative non-fiction.

Much harder than I thought.

After all, like I said, that's what I write here.

I write stories about myself and my life.

The thoughts that run through my head and the events taking place around me.

I write stories, I tell tales, but many of them are true. They are my stories.

So I have no idea why this is proving to be so difficult.

I have read examples of creative non-fiction. I have gotten some direction. I have sat and stewed and procrastinated for almost two weeks. And yet I still have nothing. Nothing.

I finally had a talking-to with myself last night, trying to kick my butt into gear.

So today I sat down, determined to write something, anything, that I could show to my tutor.

And I wrote. I did.

I stayed on the topic I had chosen, and I wrote. Not the required amount, but I wrote. The only problem was, as the story began to take shape , I realized that it had turned away from being my story. It had turned into someone else's story. This someone shared many of my characteristics and thoughts and feelings, but not enough to be considered a non-fiction tale.

This is where I'm stumped. Everything that is coming out of me is fiction. I am filled with a desire to tell other people's stories, not my own.

I think part of it stems from this belief that, "My life isn't that interesting. It's not interesting enough to be able to fill 4-6 pages."

I think I am also unaccustomed to sitting down because I have to write. Not write anything, but write about myself.

I don't know that I've ever had to do that before.

To create a story, one with a beginning, middle, and end, all about me.

I tell these stories about myself here on my blog, in a couple hundred words. I sit down and the stories just flow out of me, unplanned.

This, well, I just don't know where to start.

[blank]

I sit here, with so many things I could say. Important things, very not-important things. Some I'm just dying to talk about, others are just fleeting thoughts.

The words are trapped somewhere.

See, right here? This is where normally there would be words. Funny, interesting, thoughtful, you choose the adjective.

I just keep writing a sentence and deleting it. Not because there was anything particularly wrong with it, it just didn't say what I wanted it to say. But I don't know what I want to say. That's a teeny bit of a problem.

I guess I have to figure out what I'm feeling before I can start to describe it.