Quarter in Review

The quarter is finally over.

I'm feeling pretty good at this point. This has been my hardest school session so far, but I think I handled it well. Things will just get harder the closer I get to graduation, so I guess I should get used to it. I'm trying not to get too excited yet - I'll let myself relax (or not) when final grades come out.

This quarter has been a lot different from the last one. I feel like I've grown closer to different people, and distanced from some people that I didn't expect to. I've been working harder in classes, I've surprised myself and been thoroughly disappointed a few times too. I think if anything this quarter has been a lesson in expectations. Too often I come up with expectations of what I want to happen or what I think should happen, and about 80 percent of the time these plans don't develop the way I want them too. It's silly, I guess, to get so invested in the way things aren't or the way I want them to be, but I don't really know how not too. I see my life, and I see how beautiful it is, but I can't help but see the things that aren't there at the same time. I almost think that all of my problems would be solved if I could learn to let go of a few things, but I love them too much. I somehow got this weird idea in my head that one day I will wake up and things will be easy, that they'll be fixed. I know this doesn't really happen, but doesn't it? Sometimes I look around and just think, "doesn't it?" . Life hinges in moments, but I guess even the universe isn't that good. But I'm working through things as best as I can. And I really am happy, honest. I'm just trying to take care of some loose ends.

Things lately

haven't been the greatest. The self doubt, self criticism that I left behind me at the end of last quarter have bubbled back up to the surface of my day to day remarkably fast. My life has so much potential to be so good - and most of the time it is - but the see-saw of it all is unnerving, exhausting, and I fear worst of all, unavoidable.

It seems like these past few days have been calling me to come to terms with , or at least recognize a few of the things that I have done my best to forget about. Bringing them back out hurts, but I can only hope that this period of pain and frustration can be followed with one of comfort, joy, and - dare I say it - constancy.

I need to get back to this, to getting it all out.

Freeze

Every now and then, only not as frequently as that phrasing makes it sound, I will have a moment - an instence - of pure contentment. A moment where I think, if I could just freeze time, if I could just live and re-live this moment for the rest of existence, I would be happy. I remember the first time I had this thought, at least the first time in my semi-adult existence, and I remember most of them that have happened since. They're all different. Some seem a little silly, others, idyllic. Almost all naive. But I can still remember the ways these moments made me feel, the assurance, the relief they offered.

It's funny to think how, if I had had my way, I could be stuck under a tree in the rain, or staring contentedly at someone I used to know so well, or looking up at a set of bright stadium lights.

But living in any one of these would have meant missing out on every other moment that followed. It would mean I would be perpetually 16 and happy, or 17 and confident, or anything else that I have been. But it would also mean being nothing that I am.

Because I can't be anything other than the product of my troubles, finding refuge in the light of my days. I don't know how. And I'm okay with that.

More than okay.

Real World

Something people say a lot to me when I mention all the trials and tribulations I've been going through in the last couple of weeks is "welcome to the real world".

I have a problem with this phrase for a couple of reasons. Namely, to say that I am now in the real world would imply that I was previously in an un-real world. As far as I can tell, the last 19 years haven't been spent asleep or in some alternate universe. Unless this is some Inception style plot twist in my life, (in which case the real world really doesn't matter because I must still be asleep) this most definitely is a word just as real as it was last year, or five years ago. More sheltered, maybe. But just as real.

And, secondly, it's a phrase that people say at every major milestone. High school, college, marriage. Seriously, how many real worlds are there?

So, what has changed? When I think about how to categorize a life I can't help but thinking about Alexander Pope. Pope was a writer who lived in the 18th century, and pretty much the only way you would know who he is if you are an English major. Pope wrote about this concept called "the chain of being" as a way of talking about knowledge, and it's an idea that has always been kind of interesting to me.

Visualize a chain. Now imagine that each link on the chain represents a being. The bottom link belongs to rocks and dirt, the top to God. In the middle are animals, humans, and everything else. Essentially, each level on the chain has access to a certain amount of knowledge that the organism on that level can master. It can never know more than it's level allows, only speculate, and the closer a link is to God, the more it can know. So, a rock can never know more than the bottom link, and God can know all the links.

I don't think the world is real or un-real, I just think that our capacity for knowledge, experience, and opportunity changes. For us, the links on the chain are landmarks. Each period of our life allows us to only accomplish so much. But unlike Pope, we have the opportunity to move up the chain with time, link by link.

So I'm up a link.

Things are good.

Regardless of the little things that pop up in my way, like losing my wallet or getting sick, things are good. I'm falling into place piece by piece, and letting myself let go to see if others hold on. So far they are. Even though I'm behind on some things and physically feel less than perfect, I'm happy.

It's a happiness that is unassuming and maybe a little unfounded, but it is also real. I haven't felt happy like that in a while.

In the mean time, here's what I'm looking forward to:
Sleep!
Finishing Sense and Sensibility
My birthday
Hopefully spending some actual quality time with my family and best friends
Fall
Writing out some of the things in my head. I'm starting to feel inspired in a way I haven't recently, and I can't wait until I can take advantage of that. Writing makes me happier than anything.

Starbucks Thoughts

I wish I was good at something concrete - something useful. Like, maybe if I could build things, then people would get it. Then I wouldn't be "weird" or "unusual" or "wasting my time". Or, maybe if I was good at science or math or anything usable. Anything solid. But I'm not. Every time someone finds out that I'm and English major they ask, "What are you going to do with that?? teach?". The answer is always invariably yes, but somehow that's never good enough. Somehow my plans never match up other peoples, and I don't care - I really don't. But for some reason they all seem to.

So many people see English as a dead end major, because you're probably not going to become a famous reporter or writer, but that's not the point for me. I think that it's kind of wonderful that we can create something - learn it and perfect it, for no real tangible reason other than to share it with someone else. All because someone, somehow, thought it was important. Because for someone it was worth it.

what could be more human? Isn't that the point of everything? Isn't that life?