Continuous Change....

It feels like it's time again. The weeks go by so quickly. School has started and I’m still in quasi-summer mode. The predictions I made in my last post have come true, and time has, seemingly, acquired a couple red bulls and sprouted wings. It's in the stratosphere somewhere and doesn’t seem to have any plans on coming back down. I'm doing my best to keep up.

I sat and talked last night for hours and couldn’t help but feel that I’d left the conversation with even less understanding than I started. So many things are going on in my life right now, all outward and inward struggles against the pressures of knowing my purpose of existence, and the only course of action left to me seems to be something that I’m not quite comfortable with.

Since the first (in retrospect forced) social interactions of my freshman year, I’ve been a fish out of water, flapping around, praying, waiting, struggling for the evolution that would transform my pitiful floundering into confident strides. Yet still I feel I’m outside of my box, both baffled by the realization that I am no longer completely content in my solitude, and shaken by the fact that I am uncomfortably inept socially, I sit, struggling to reenter against a sea of emotional backlash.

I've grown too much to fit in my box and have evolved too far to survive in the water. In nurturing one side of my life, another has died leaving "the point of no return" as its epitaph. I've been reborn and am forced to learn to walk again. Now, longing for companionship and desiring interaction, totally lost and strangely afraid, I am completely and utterly dumfounded.

Uncertainty is rarely comforting, and true change is never easy.

Just Another Day....

This won't be anything deep or profound. I just figured I’d write something to fill the space that’s been missing for the past two months. Many things have happened since then. Summer started and is now almost over, and I, despite my best efforts, have been bored out of my mind. I know that I’ll look back on this day with scorn when the books start piling and the papers are due. I have so much time on my hands right now, time I know I won't have when school starts again.

I've been thinking about the upcoming year and am wracked with indecision about what path I should take. On one hand I have the ability to go over seas and study on foreign soil. On the other, I have the privilege/possibility of aiding an organization that my heart has been in since my arrival at school. I'm being pulled from both sides by none other than myself and I can't seem to find a conclusion that makes me totally happy. So, I’ve chosen what makes me most content.

I can never say that I’ve made a true commitment if I don't actually go through with committing. So...I'm staying. Though I’m sure that in England I would learn, experience, and grow in ways I never could here, I know that there will always be opportunities for exploration. I must first get my house in order before I can go out and explore the other side of the fence. I just hope that I have enough drive and dedication to make this experience worth forfeiting the part of my life I could be living.

For those of you who have been waiting for this decision: I'm putting my best foot forward so that you have the opportunity to do the same.

20 years old...

I am officially not a teen any more. Scary as that may sound, it's not the most jarring part; for now, at the cusp of my formative (as if every day of ones life isn't in some way formative) and adult years I must, in fact, be my own person. I know this concept may elude some.

“What do you mean be your own person? You've been in college for two years, had your own job, made your own life decisions...etc".

I do understand this argument, and though all of these things are true, the bottom line, slap in the face reality is: all of my scapegoats are on an official leave of absence, and until I reach the age in which expectations for me are lowered again (probably at 100 with the rate popular thinking is evolving), the ball is not only in my court, it's in my hands.

For the first time in my life I am officially faced with the task of ordering my own steps. It matters little what my self perception has been over the years, how intellectually independent I think I have become in entering college or even how hard I’ve worked to makes sane/levelheaded decisions. Before this moment (or before June 1st to be exact) all of these things were attributed to the guidance of my parents, mentors, and other guardians over my life. Up until this point, every tumble I’ve taken, every inch I’ve fallen, every mistake I’ve made has been (in the eyes of the general public) de-facto transferred onto the shoulders of others. But now, at the ripe age of 20 I am essentially expected to "know better".

I am an adult. Perhaps the most power packed four words I’ve every spoken, this declaration has a finality that I have been afraid of for all of my life. In being comfortable with its constant inconsistencies, I have, ironically, come to define my stability through life’s seemingly erratic fluctuations. Seeing my thoughts as a representative manifestation of these variations as apposed to a digressive deviation from the comparatively regular and stable psyche of others has given me reassurance that has transcended the boundaries of outside perceptions.

But now, those boundaries are extended and I am frightened at the prospect of having to change my level of individuality/instability. With these new boundaries I am effectively forced to "go all out". Now, instead of comfortably residing outside of the area in which others expect me to be, I must push myself to reach that place.

This transition into adulthood would not be as jarring if it were not for the fact that this new status has moved the place in which I am most comfortable to an area that is beyond my comfort zone. The sad part is I knew it was coming, and, from the viewpoint a person who, if given a choice, would rather be ignorant of his terminal illness, this knowlege was/is the pea under my mattress.

If God has a sense of humor life must be his court jester.

Another chapter...

I moved out today. It didn't hit me as hard as it did last year which proves that hindsight is not always 20/20. THis post will be different then the other ones before it. Recently i've been looking to the outside world to interpret what's going on inside of me. It's worked, but it's time for a bit of a change.

This school year has been one of, if not the, most ridiculous year(s) in my life. My grades suffered, I had no time to breath, I was running on four hours ( or less) of sleep a majority of nights/mornings, and I seperated myself from somethiung that had been in my life for the better part of two years. I laughed. I cried. I learned. I grew. And now, at the end, I feel that I have, for all intents of purpose, reincarnated into the me that's typing this rught now. I feel like a completely new person, and, inspite of ( or because of) a great deal of the heaven/hell i've been through this year, I can't say that i'm upset with the results.

If it were not for this year and the extracaricular rehersals that oten took 6+ hous of my day...everyery day, I would not have learned how to work under pressure that would have caused me to slit my wrists last year. If it wasn't for the hundreds of pages of books and paper after paper, I would not have learned to accept the fact that life seems cruel right before it becomes cruelest. If not for the virtually sleepless nights I would not have built the endurance to sit trough lectures in which professors seemingly forget to teach and continue on with self indulgent banter for entire eighty minute periods.

This year, if nothing else, proved to me the extent to which I will have to stretch myself in order to be anywhere near I need to be to do what i want to do in the future. Because honestly, I can't see myself being satisfied until I am better at what I choose to do than anyone . Call this attitude what you must, I know that it's pointles to try something unless i'm going to be the absoulte best I can at it.

Why I do this....

It has come to my attention that I have been and am now creating something here that society (and academia) has not been able to make sense of. They question why anyone would make something public that is and has been so personal. They wonder how an individual could have a desire to explore ideas and thoughts that are so close to his or her heart in a space where anyone could see them and comment. They are baffled by the fact that otherwise socially and intellectually introverted people (read: me) would so boldly and freely articulate their hopes, aspirations, desires, and dreams to an arena that not only consists of the people whom they would not communicate with under normal circumstances but also includes the entire world.

Though I can't accurately speak for everyone, I'd like to (at least semi-intelligibly) speak for myself.

I started this journal as a means through which I could unload what was on my mind at the end of any given day. Because, honestly, (no matter how much I hate it and how much it jeopardizes the stability of my sanity at times) I live to think, and I, as a result, internalize and inwardly scrutinize everything that goes on in my head. If you were to ask me a year ago, I would have told you that I think too much. Now, because of my experiences in life and the ability to succinctly record and review them here, I see that, despite it all, I don't think nearly enough.

Essentially, here lies the end of the line for many tracks on which the train(s) of my thoughts have traveled. Every post here no matter how short or seemingly trivial is a (debatably) decipherable snapshot of ideas and thoughts that travel so quickly and in such abundance that they would (without the aid of this external storage) coalesce into a giant ball of uninterpretable, indirectable and unrefineable feelings. This journal keeps my mind free enough from these thoughts to be healthily burdened by them, and, in spite of my internal protests, creates an opening for others to dissect and interpret them in ways that may aid in their understanding of things they would never have ventured to observe before.

I would be lying if I said that this didn't scare me. I'm not one who revels in the idea that people (no matter how small the number) can see my thoughts and incorporate them into a pile of beliefs that affects and forms their own. But even with this being the case, I still feel a rush of happiness when someone tells me that my thoughts have made them think. I can see why this would be confusing to society. Because, like this journal, and, to a greater extent, me, it is an illogical contradiction.