Filled to the brim

My mind is brimming with all kinds of thoughts today, and I wish I could write a blog to explore each of them. But I can't, so I'm cramming them all into one. Here goes:

First, I can't stop thinking about how I narrowly missed a very scary situation the other night. If I had come home 15 minutes earlier, if I had said NO to the tacos and just gone straight home, it could have been me who was robbed. I dont know if he would have shot me, because I would have complied with his demand, but no matter what would have happened, it would have been scary. I would have been a much easier target, and had the robber had a choice of the big football player or the skinny white girl with a purse, I think he would have chosen me. I'm refusing to be afraid, though. This is my home. I love this town and I feel safe at this apartment complex. I am not going to let a bad person like that make me unsafe in my home.

I had a discussion yesterday with a friend from undergraduate school, and it left me feeling sad. I realized we once sat together in classes at UA, working on our writing, soaking up everything we could. We had high hopes. We were naive and hopeful for our futures as writers. Now, he is living back at home and working a job he hates. Now, I am going to a school I don't like and I feel no fulfillment from what I'm doing. All that's left of those optimistic days are crushed dreams.

I've recently been dealing with the difficult realization that people change, and it's not always for the better and it can take you by surprise. I've had to accept that someone I call my best friend no longer calls me theirs. It's very hard. I won't lie. But I'm using this as an opportunity to take that next step out into the world and embrace the change that's coming.

A funny moment I experienced yesterday left me pondering my views on the institution of marriage. I see myself as having fairly modern views on marriage. I'll explain further. I, of course, believe that once you're married, you are truly making a commitment to that person, and with that commitment comes the promise you'll always be faithful. In that sense, I'm traditional. But I don't believe two people have to be married to live together. I don't believe in the "obey" part of the vow on the woman's part. I definitely don't believe a woman should ever be expected to be submissive. I dont know if I even think marriage is relevent anymore. Sometimes when I think about it, it just seems so old fashioned and out of date, the whole idea of it. But anyway, that being said, I'm editing a dissertation for a doctoral student who's writing on healthy marriages within the church. I've heard my fair share of preachers' views on marriage, and I very rarely agree with them. So, someone with my outlook on the institution was assigned to this particular dissertation. Ironic. I'm just hoping I don't read the word "submissive" anywhere in it.

First week drama

After changing my schedule the first day, which put my teacher through an ordeal, and being late for the second day of class (same teacher by the way...great impression there) I'm feeling like I haven't gotten off to the best start in grad school. I feel disorganzied, despite my best efforts to make things simple and easy, and I feel scattered. I feel out of place. I feel overwhelmed, but underwhelmed at the same time.
As I was running from room to room, sticking my face in the window trying to find my teacher and gathering an increasingly large pack of English teachers who trailed me to help me find my way, I had the urge to drop everything and go home. I know I said so outloud several times, and if I hadn't had a friend with me I probably would have done so. I thought, "maybe this is a sign that this isn't for me. Maybe I shouldn't be here." I wanted so badly to go home to Tuscaloosa and re-enroll in undergraduate classes at UA.
I know--rather, I hope-- it's just first week jitters and confusion making me feel this way. After a few weeks I'll get in the groove. I keep telling myself this, but right now, myself isn't listening and doesn't care. Myself wants to pack it up and head home and crawl in bed. Forget grad school and the whole thing. Just leave me alone and let me sleep.

Folex and Prado

Yesterday was my first day in graduate school. While I was getting ready to go with a friend who is in the same program as I am, we were chatting about how we didn't feel very excited. Shouldn't we feel accomplished and smart and ready to tackle the next big thing? Well, that was just it. This didn't feel like the next BIG thing.
"I feel like I used to have a Coach bag, and now I'm carrying a knockoff" she said, referring to the fact that we used to go to The University of Alabama and now we go to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Is this school we're attending now somehow not as good? Should we feel like we're taking a step down? Maybe it's not true, but it certainly feels like it.
I feel like I'm walking around with a Folex watch and a Prado wallet. At first glance, it looks like the real thing. But then you look at the fine print. It's not the real thing. It's a convincing knockoff, but a knockoff, nonetheless.
I don't feel proud. I don't feel like I want to run around announcing where I to school. I relate it to when I bought fake Chanel sunglasses in China Town. Sure, I was happy to have those famous C's on my sunglasses for only $10, but I didn't feel the need to tell everyone, "Oh, these aren't real. They're knockoffs." Of course I wanted to walk around with them on my face and let people think I had real Chanels.
So, now that I'm not longer at The University, I've lost my real Coach bag and I'm settling for the knockoff.
Feeling this way makes me wonder what else in life is a knockoff. What am I carrying that looks like the real thing but isn't? Am I settling for the next best thing in other places in my life too?

Never satisfied

Tonight, I'm wondering if I'm alone in this feeling or if this is a common thing for people of my same age and situation.
I feel constantly discontent.
I want to go home to see my family, but when I get there I wish to be back at my own apartment.
I want to see my boyfriend, but when I get there I get bored and wish I was somewhere else.
I want to come home from school or anywhere else, but when I get home I am restless and ready to do something.
I am out and about in town and I suddenly wish I was at home with my computer, writing and being creative, but when I rush home and sit down with my computer I am bored and no longer feel creative.
Why am I never content where I am? Why am I never content with who I'm with? Even if I'm having fun there is a nagging feeling in the back of my mind telling me I somehow wish I was somewhere else, doing something else, with someone else.
Is this a sign I'm not happy with my life in general? Is this a sign of depression? Is this my restless spirit telling me its time to move on to bigger and better things?
I don't know what the answer is. I don't know why I always feel like this.
I'm wondering if others are plagued with discontent, or am I alone?

Post-grad blues

I knew somewhere deep down I was sad about no longer being a student at UA, and I knew somewhere I was sad that things were changing. But the excitement of the next part of my life overshadowed that saddness. I was dreaming of having a master's degree and moving to a new city and feeling smart and successful. I was excited that my friends were moving on to new and impressive things. I was proud of them and their accomplishments and considered myself lucky to have such intelligent friends.
But all of a sudden, I don't like any of this at all. I don't want to go to to another school. I want to go back to undergrad at UA. I want my friends to go back to undergrad at UA. I want those days back, the days of meeting up in study hall, talking and complaining about class and trying not to laugh too loud at each other. The days of spending all day in Bryant-Denny Stadium screaming and jumping, cheering for the Tide, and meeting up afterward for pre-gaming and going out to the bars. Girls' Nights at Buffalo Wild Wings, meeting on campus for lunch in the Ferg. Just normal every day things will change, and I'm not ready for that change. Those years went by too fast. Looking back now I feel like I took them for granted. This time in our lives, the time when we'd all scatter to different cities, different school to start new things, was a million years away. It was only a distant dream. And thinking of it that way prevented me from preparing for it. I thought we'd be in college forever.
So now I've found myself at a very strange place in my life. I'm having trouble accepting this change and feeling ready to move on. I just spent a few days getting one of my very best friends set up in a new town. As I was driving home I realized I got to go back to the town she was missing, the town all those memories were made in, but the town wouldn't be the same anymore. She was one of the reasons it was home.
I also realized I'll be walking around a campus every day that isn't MY campus. It isn't covered with crimson and white and people getting excited about the game this weekend. And most importantly, my friends aren't there.
I know I have to accept these changes as part of life, and I need to learn to be excited about the next thing instead of just looking back and longing for old times. But I'm finding it to be much more difficult than I ever imagined.

Comfort Zones

I've determined that comfort zones are a big part of life: both finding them and getting out of them. Remember when you went from middle school to high school and it was scary and new? Then you became so comfortable and at home in high school that the thought of going away to college terrified you. That first day at college everything seemed so big and foreign and you had the "small fish in a big pond" feeling. Remember how intimidating everything was? And then what happened? College bacame your comfort zone, just as high school had been before.
I was driving around UA's campus the other day and I thought about how if I suddenly turned blind and deaf I think I could still find my way around campus. My feet would just know where to go. I walked to class down those sidewalks so many times the paths became part of my programming.
The classrooms I spent so many days in were home. The familiar smells and faces were my comfort zone. I felt safe and secure on my college campus, so far from the feelings of nervousness and displacement I felt when I first walked through the campus years before. I knew what my every day would be like.
Now as I'm on the verge of being jerked out of my comfort zone of crimson and white and put into a whole other world I'm reflecting on the importance of getting out of that zone we get stuck in. Of course the easy thing to do would be to stay where we've grown accustomed to being and find comfort in the routine we've established. But getting out of that zone and throwing yourself into something new and scary is part of living. We can never fully experience life unless we're constantly putting ourselves in uncomfortable situations.
Eventually those news places will become comfortable. I wonder if that's when it's time to move on from that? I wonder when it's time to settle into one zone? Or is it about having one place comfortable to come home to but continuing to see new places and experience new things?
I don't know what the balance is, but I know that when I become comfortable I let my guards down and I let my standards fall a bit. It seems like I don't try as hard as I should when I'm in familiar circumstances. Keeping myself on my feet is the best way for me to perform at the level I know I can. I do better when I'm uncomfortable because I feel like I have to prove myself to everyone. Routine makes me lazy.
Maybe not everyone thinks that way. I don't know.

these are not my people

Have you ever found yourself in a situation and you realize "These are not my people"? You are surrounded by people who you have nothing in common with and find yourself terribly out of place among them. I had this experience recently, and it made me reflect on all the other times I've felt this way. It occured to me I'm not really sure who my people actually are. I know who my closest friends are and I always feel comfortable around them, but what about everyone else? I think figuring out who your people are is a key step in figuring out who you are. Where do you feel most comfortable? Most importantly, where do you feel like you don't have to be someone you're not?

I once found myself feeling inadequate because I had nothing to add to a conversation about eating organically and participating in contra and African dance festivals. These girls seemed to look down on me because I'm not part of the Earth Child movement. As the day went on I realized I was feeling bad about myself because I felt uninteresting to these girls, but I had forgotten the plenty of people in my life who do find me interesting. I wasn't like them, and there was nothing wrong with that. I eat food from grocery stores and I occasionally eat fast food and I can't dance to save my life, but there are plenty of other good and interesting things about me.

In school I tried to make myself fit into the journalism crowd, and I quickly realized those weren't my people, but I also didn't always feel comfortable in my creative writing classes. I remember two creative writing classes where I liked and felt comfortable around the people in my class. Those are the classes I miss when I think back on college.
I think it's natural to want to fit in with a group of people. It's human nature to want that feeling of belonging and kinship. We just have to make sure we're trying to fit in with the right group and not trying to change ourselves to please other people. Be yourself and your people will find you.

Shoulds, wants, and fulfillment

I thought the unknown was scary. And it is. But the known is pretty intimidating as well. Somehow I thought getting that letter saying "You're in! Congrats!" from UAB would solve my problems. I kept saying "Well, once I know one way or the other I'll feel better." Uh, no. I don't. Now a million questions are running through my mind. Am I selling myself short by staying in Alabama and just going to by backup plan school? Am I choosing the right course of study? And most importantly....why am I REALLY going to school? Is it because I want to or because I think I SHOULD. There's that word, the one that determines what people everywhere do with their lives. We are stuck in a cycle of trying to find fulfillment in doing what we should do. Those things will make us happy and successful, we think. But will they really fulfill us? What is underneath all the shoulds in your life? What are the wants?
Some people do find happiness in education.
Some people find happiness in a job they love, and they have no need to keep going to school. They already have what they want.
Some people find happiness in starting a family. The love they get from husbands, kids, being a mom is what they need to feel fulfilled.
I am almost envious of people who seem so confident in what they want, whatever it is, because I don't really know right now what is going to make me happy.
I know I'll find it, but I hope I don't get too lost in searching.

The twenty-somethings' revolution

I'm reading a book called Twenty Something Twenty Everything about the quarter-life crisis unique to women, especially recent college grads. This crisis is characterized by the feeling of "nothing is wrong, but nothing feels right either."
This feeling is brought on by the expectations put on us by society to figure out our lives in that period between starting college and turning 30. Decide what you want to do forever, graduate with good grades and a clear path cut for the next few years, get a fabulous job, get your own place, find the perfect man who'll let you be independent but can be relied on, get married, have kids, balance family and career, and look great in the process.
Parents remind us daily what's expected of us and keep the pressure on us to get it all together.
So, what happens if we didn't figure out exactly what we want to do while we were busy making the grades in college? What if we graduated with good grades but aren't ready to settle in one job right away? Or worse, what if we graduated into a bad economy and there isn't a job to settle into? What if the guy we love doesn't quite fit the mold of the perfect guy? What if neither of you are ready to get married and crank out the kids?
What if we're not ready to be grown-ups the day after college graduation?
I need more time. I haven't fully discovered who I am yet and I'm not completely sure what I want out of life. I need time to figure it out. Can't I be afforded that time?
I'm starting a revolution. We don't have to be perfect right now. We don't have to be perfect EVER. It's my life. I'll figure it out, but I'll figure it out on my terms.
Twenty-somethings rise up and fight against expectations. Let's do it our way.