Wow, it’s been a long time since I’ve posted on here… WordPress has changed everything around on me! If you read my last post, I said that I’d be writing more academic stuff on theotherjournal.com and I’d be on here for just casual updates about my life and stuff. Well to be honest, in the last few months my blogging desire has decreased dramatically. But I made a commitment to theotherjournal, and have been trying to keep putting something up there that sounds somewhat interesting once a week.
But, it is nearing the end of my Christmas break, the first time I returned home after 4 months… and because blogging helps me process, I wanted to go ahead and post a blog that was pretty personal, which I don’t really feel like I can do on the other one. There’s not a whole lot of academic stuff in this post, just the thoughts of a disappearing teenager. (Disappearing in the sense that I’m supposed to be becoming an adult now).
The nation got hit with some pretty crummy weather across the board the week I came home, but the Northwest weather was particularly momentous, as those living here know. The worst weather in 30-something years. It was pretty gross. I didn’t enjoy the snow, since I get plenty in Michigan, and I was ready to come home and hang out with my friends the entire time. But, instead I was under house arrest for a week, leaving my friend-time to only a short week. And since I’ve made friends in different circles, that meant I had to plan the whole week out more-or-less as to when I’d hang out with what friends. Because I knew that my time here was short, I was ready to live it up to the max and appreciate every second I got with them, especially the ones I really missed. But the first ocassion I got out of the house, I planned a get together with a few guy friends of mine that I especially missed. And it was great to see them! But it wasn’t a big deal to them that I was there, I thought. They just chatted about cars and video games or whatever, which I couldn’t really be included in. It wasn’t as if my presence really seemed to make a difference. And after moving 2000 miles away, and missing them buckets while I was gone, it felt like that wasn’t returned.
That was a definite let down. So I shouldn’t have been surprised that getting together with friends from high school would feel like… well, high school again. And now that I’ve been at college for 4 months, and love it, I realize, over all, I hated high school. Not to say I hated my friends… I didn’t at all. But I just thought, I feel like I’ve changed so much now that I’m in college, I would have expected my friends to change that same way so that we could all be college-kids together! And of course, that was the case in a lot of ways. But I didn’t feel like they changed as much over the past four months as I have. But maybe moving clear across the country does that to someone.
Another item that made this break especially odd is that I started dating someone at school now. We’ve only been dating about a month and a half, but we’ve been good friends for about 3 months, and I really miss him. But it’s weird to me that I can be hanging out with friends of six years and miss someone I’ve only known for a few months. And because it’s so early in our relationship, in a lot of ways I really don’t know him that well, so much of my time this break has been spent worrying that since I’m not with him, he’s going to get over me. That’s what happened with the last guy I dated, and unfortunately the fear of that happening again is ever-present.
Also, my boyfriend has a great family. Not perfect, of course, but he has two siblings and two parents still married, and he spent a lot of time at his grandparents house (probably too much time, but that’s beside the point). So since I talk to him and am sharing his life and whatnot, his life this break is providing a direct foil to mine, almost causing me to be jealous of him. Not that my family is horrible, but I’ve lived with my grandma the past six years, and my parents both have screwed up lives that they sometimes try and include me in, but for the most part I don’t know them and in some ways don’t want to. When I don’t think about parents, usually I’m okay with my situation, and I appreciate what I have. But with his life serving as a reminder to what I’m missing… it’s been hard this break.
So for the past four months I’ve gotten homesick and missed the familiar things from the Northwest. But now, once I got here, I realize… where I feel most comfortable has shifted. I do not feel comfortable here, I feel like a visitor. I feel alone and unappreciated and imprisoned by the mistakes I made in high school. I’ve been able to start fresh in Michigan, and that’s what I needed. I’ve been able to be more confident, more comfortable, and if I dare say it, less sinful. Or at least, the sins that plagued me all through high school are not an issue in college, thankfully. I don’t want to say I’m a completely different person. Those who have met me again see me as the same. But I think underneath, if one looks hard enough, I have changed quite a bit.
I look forward to going back. I admit, I’m not as interested in academics as I used to be. In high school, that was the only thing that kept me going. But I still get excited about it enough that the rest of the school year should go by beautifully, I think.
