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.