Cham-O-Mile

I really only post when I need to expel my feelings. Or dispel a myth. Or cast a spell. That's just a near-rhyme joke, people. No worries.

This time, though, I am writing because I am drinking tea and listening to the Decemberists, and what other choice do I have on this Saturday night but to release my thoughts and hopes and dreams and innards onto this slightly public page. And to think, I so often rebel against our lack of yearning for privacy, and I am making the problem extend just a little further.

All digressions aside, I really don't have much of substance to say. I am overwhelmed, taken in by the tide of school work and life work and my utter and complete fear. I hate that, my fear, my anxiety. My future...well, I have faith that it will work out, but I am still in the stage of unknowing AND of fearing those shadows. I am waiting to hear about my summer and about my next year and about beyond...it's the beyond that comforts me, strangely enough. The beyond is still full of hope and promise and life and my own ability to do what I need.

Oh boy. Sleepy tea is kicking in.

Instant SnapShot

I really wonder about my generation sometimes.

I hate parties. Let me make that stipulation before I may proceed. They really just make me tired, and by the time I have enough personal space to look around, everyone in proximity is being insanely inappropriate, and then I gag a bit.

So that's my deal.

It surprises no one when I say that I don't like big parties. No one with an ounce of intuition, anyways.

And yes, I completely understand that I can't find the person I want to be lazy with, a beau, without putting myself out in the world to find them first. My confidence problems, which don't manifest themselves in the way that most girls' my age, but in a quieter and more withdrawn way, don't help me any. I'm the biggest mess, and most people would never guess that.

But, really. My generation. Our need for instant gratification and our culture of "hit and run" socialization...are these results of short attention spans, overstimulation of dopaminergic receptors, or an upbringing in a world full of too many choices and not enough security? We seek what we can surely grasp, fleeting as that grasp may be. It worries me, this apparent piece of our souls that is missing. I guess my own desires color my outlook, but doesn't it sort of...suck? To live this life of getting what you can, because genuity is clearly too much to ask? I don't think that it is too much to ask. I think it is just enough. But, oh, our cultural pressure! What are we supposed to expect from ourselves when, often, the world expects everything and nothing from us? It's a quandary that is hard to grasp and harder to conquer. It's a matter of courage, I believe, to have the courage to closely examine your life and decide what you ACTUALLY want, not what you think you should want. As we bypass truth in the race to satisfaction, we also let ourselves fall to the wayside, in a combination of things too complex yet too fleeting. We want to feel as if we belong, above all things; we want to feel warm touch and deep concern and a blanket of constancy. This is normal, but the way we go about it, with desperation but a short lived need, produces this culture we see now. It is a culture that lacks any privacy in intimacy and any need to respect oneself enough to give that privacy. We have a culture of blurred morality, or perhaps, morality has been quietly redefined into a whole 'nother monster.

I don't have the answers, the explanation. All I can say is that...I don't like it. I just don't like it, and I insist on being myself, and if that means a slower curve of "socialization", then that's that.

A baby

There's something incredible about new life.

It's like the concrete proof and the irrefutable evidence of hope. Of possibility. Of potential, in this world full of cynics.

I am a full blown quasi-aunt to a beautiful baby girl. I usually think newborns are kind of funny looking and not my kind of company, but I have fallen in love with her already, just from photos. She knows nothing of this world, a true blank canvas and a whole new life waiting to be formed.

We never get that chance in life, that much is true. No matter how new we might feel, we are never completely fresh, completely without a past. The past colors who we are to the extent that we allow. I think, I believe, that you can choose your past, though. You can choose what you allow to influence you. Usually. With all of these things I say, all of my beliefs, I also know that there are some things that I do not want to influence my life that...do. They really do. And those are my own demons, I suppose.

I'm rambling. I wanted to write a post that conveys my warm fuzzies over this pink baby girl, but instead, I am rambling. What can I say? This baby just mushed my brains.

I got really sick. I got humbled by people of great accomplishment.

I got my perspective back.

Thank you, Lord. I need to not lose that so gosh darn easily.

Purposeful regression

I've been having some issues.
I'm letting things get to me at a much deeper level than I should. It's not like this is new, I do it all the time, but now even little things are starting to dig dig dig.
And it's not like everything sucks. Some great things are happening. I figured out my passion, what I want to do with my life, my freaking PURPOSE. That feeling..it's unmatchable. I can't turn back to cluelessness, and I can't be a lost soul anymore. I have something I'm moving towards.
I guess, the problem is, now that I have this big purpose...everything else seems inherently discordant. How can I have figured out what I truly want, but still not be getting...what I want? As in, the little things, the things that are so "normal" for people my age and place in life, I don't have. At all. It's been making me into some sort of mess as of late, this discordance, this cognitive dissonance. How can I be so right and so wrong, at the same time? Does it mean that the right things are out of luck, or am I a victim of the wrong?
I think I need to stop looking for the huge end goal, the big pieces. I found my purpose, this thing I was questing for all along. I need to focus now on my happiness, the happiness I was so able to see when I wasn't trying to kill myself over my future. I feel like I lost control over my future when I have really gained more control over the one thing I actually can control: my efforts in it all. I know what I'm doing.
That's a lie. I have no idea what I'm doing. But I can at least know that I am working, and it will work out. My future is there for the taking. I am going to embrace it, and meanwhile, I need to come back to the present.

Steel

You don' t know how strong you truly are.

You don't know how strong you truly are until it's tested.

You don't know how strong you truly are until it's tested by the worst winds.

You don't know how strong you truly are until it's tested by the worst winds and you come out ok.

Repetition, though my least favorite form of poetic device, was necessary here. Even in the college bubble, I am constantly reminded that reality is not far from any of us. Reality...the worst kind of leech, the sneakiest predator. It's absolutely biting, how we can lose what we thought we had in the space of a moment. My inner strength is not something I have come by with luck or genetics, but rather by both consciously and unconsciously building it up. Strength doesn't happen upon us, you see, and many bend to pressure or change themselves when they could change their attitudes or situation, if they had the inner iron. My life...well, it's never been easy. I've been blessed in many ways, and in other ways, I've had a harder time than many on this earth. I am truly and deeply grateful for it all. I have had the life experience needed to form me into the person that I am, and when I see someone else struggling not because of outside forces but because of their own failure to be strong, I thank God that I have been shaped so sturdily at such a young age.

Life is hard. Even when I am at college and have joyful days almost every single day, I realize how difficult life is. The world does not stop so you may enjoy your happiness. Each battle, I grow stronger, though letting each piece overtake me often sounds appealing. And I want this uncommon strength to grow in its commonality. I guess we'll see.

Promote

As this week dawns on us, I realize that last week was sort of...perfect. Well, not perfect. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. But it was busy and exciting and so good. I got 2 promotions! I am not the Domestic and Sexual violence liasion/expert/activist for the Women's Resource Center! I am planning all of these amazing events and it's so incredible to be able to be physically affecting change for the thing you are most passionate about.

I also got "promoted" to co-director on the tv show I am on. I used to direct all the time, and I realized how much I missed it when I got to be on set without the pressure of being in front of the camera. I love it so much...doing something you enjoy, however small, can never be considered a waste of time.

My future lays before me, and I know that now. It will be beautiful, no matter how hard or how uncertain it seems now. I think extracting the joy out of any situation is both probable and very, very hard. Many situations lend themselves to misery, but not one is without its silver lining. Though I can't pretend that I am always happy, I do know that I'm being cared for, and my life is pretty good, in many ways that most of my peers couldn't even begin to imagine. I have an unconditional support in my mom...do many 19 year olds care about that? I have an incredible reserve of self confidence and self assurance...does anyone even give that thought? Everyday, I try to be fearless, and we all operate out of fear. And truly, I'm scared of it all, scared to trust most of all. Trying to not be independent 100% of the time is not something I'm so excited about. "The only person you can really trust is yourself", my cynical life philosophy, is something I'm working on letting fall away.

In the meantime, I settle for looking for the joy in every day. No, we mustn't measure our time so grandly. Not in months, weeks, or days, but in minutes. In moments.