college

At the end of junior year, I've been thinking all the time about college. It's like it has become its own, all-consuming subject. I just haven't, er, reconciled myself with college. I'm almost out, but I've never felt like I found a place there like most people do. The closest I've gotten is poetry classes, Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Hoffman Room, where I felt really enthusiastic and like I wanted to be there. I've never gotten involved in college social life or joined extra activities. I remain feeling disconnected from most people my age, like we just can't relate to each other. I'm on friendlier terms with my professors than my fellow students.

I also feel kind of pathetic that I'm almost 21 and have never lived on my own. Most people in college get some experience living independently out of their parents' house, in a dorm or renting an apartment or a house with friends. I never did. Not because I was afraid or didn't want to - I just can't afford it. A lot of college kids are only able to get a bit of independence because their parents pay for their dorm or apartment, or help them pay for it. My parents weren't willing to pay for anything like that or help at all - they think that if I want to be independent, I have to do it all the way, be completely self-sufficient and pay all my own bills. So if I want to move out, I need at least a full-time job. I've never been willing to work full-time during school (not like there are many jobs who would hire college students full-time), so I can't afford independence, which is this constant thing that makes me feel too childish for my age for not having moved out yet.

Also there's still this residual haunting of I Didn't Go to Wheaton. I don't wish I had gone. Mostly because, if I'd gone to Wheaton, I wouldn't have met Taylor. Also I wouldn't know any of the excellent English professors at URI. But it's still there anyway. When I made that choice, I was kind of curious. You always hear stories like this: someone has a choice between the safe decision and the risky decision... and they always, always take the risk. In spite of how it will set them back enormous amounts of money, separate them from everything familiar, etc. I was curious about what would happen to someone who just didn't take the risk. Now I know - good, even amazing things still happen, I won't graduate in debt, but. But I still have that agonizing feeling of waiting for my life to start.

I've been unhappy. Not deeply depressed or anything, and not all the time. Sometimes I'm deliriously happy. But there's always this thing that creeps in, this lethargy, like laziness but a bone-deep kind of laziness that makes you think your life will never go anywhere. Is it because the fear has gotten in that deep? Or maybe it's just the effect of three years of not doing anything risky or challenging or... what. Don't know.

hello

Whenever there's been a significant time when I haven't posted on a blog, it's mostly been because there is so much going on in my mind that I can't even write it down in a coherent way. When I start to realize that the mess in my head has gotten so big that I need to fix it, then the desire to write about it comes back. So here I am. I wanted to start a new blog again because I feel like each blog I've had marks a time in my life and a particular mindset to go along with it, and lately I've been trying to change my mindset - from terrible anxiety and fear, into optimism.

Sooo, since my last post, here are some things that have happened:

- I'm in therapy again for the first time since I was thirteen. I got a recommendation for a really good therapist from my doctor and I've only had two appointments so far, but I think it's going to help. She has me doing these exercises with titles like "Overcoming Negative Self-Talk;" sounds pretty lame, huh? But I think it might work. I'm going to post some of that stuff on this blog.

- I've gotten freaked out about the future again. I had a brief period of being okay with the present, thinking about Embracing Possibililty! and whatnot, but then it hit me like ye olde piano from the sky that I'm about to become a senior in college, STILL with no. fucking. clue about where my life is going to go.

- Thanks to my advanced poetry class with a really awesome professor and talented students, I've gotten a lot better as a poet and started viewing poetry as a serious interest, instead of something fun to do on the side. I've even tentatively stopped deluding myself that I'd rather be a fiction writer.

- I am pseudo-seriously considering applying to graduate school next year for an MFA in some kind of creative writing. Partly because I really am interested, partly because I don't want to get a real job - and don't think I'll be able to find a real job that would be anything close to fulfilling.

- Things with the boyfriend are still going very well. I'm in love and happy, but my fear of the future makes me anxious about our relationship. I want it to last, so much.

So, yay, new blog! I'm going to try to write often, and add photos and interesting things, and try to lift away that serious, melodramatic tone that seeped into the other blog when I was depressed. I can't seem to escape the inevitable Musings About My Life when I write, but I'll try to also incorporate amusing things like anecdotes and fashion misdemeanors and crazy people, cloud-patterns and books I'm reading and things written on sidewalks. Here's to a beginning.