Catching Up with Myself

I remembered today that I had a blog I wrote things in almost three years ago. Luckily, I saved the log-in info with Chrome, so I don’t have to reset the password.

Three years. I can’t believe it’s been that long since I was a college sophomore sitting in my dorm room, anxiously typing out words in an attempt to assuage how lost and how hopeless I felt.

As I sit here in my hotel room, in a state where it’s been humid basically every single day (Virginia), I can’t help chuckling at how naive I was.

I’ve never been a person who’s been able to “live in the moment”. My mind’s always been the type to enjoy the gentle rolling calmness of the waves of nostalgia, ignorant of the fact that the shore from where those memories started has long since faded out of sight, into the past. When I left middle school, all I could complain about on Facebook was how I took middle school for granted. When I finally left New York and went to Boston for college, all I could think about was how I had taken my high school years for granted, and how college could never replicate the experiences I had. My first few nights of freshman year orientation week were spent wondering where my life was going, with me wondering if I had a sense of direction.

Freshman year went by in the blink of an eye. So did sophomore year, junior year, and even senior year. What’s weird is that the minutes and days felt like weeks and months, while the months felt fleeting and temporary. I did the same thing every day — wake up, go to class, eat, play League, sleep. Though the hours I spent in class felt as slow as molasses, the transition from day to night went by in the blink of an eye. Junior year and senior year were my favorite years — I wasn’t a perfect roommate or friend, nor was I stress free (who can be, when you “have to find an internship” or “have to find a job“?) — not because of how “perfect” they were, but because of the fact that I knew I had support even in the midst of my problems, and because I was finally, after two years, settling down into living in Boston and getting used to college. Everything felt okay — things weren’t great, but they weren’t bad. I felt stable. Feeling okay was good enough.

My anxiety grew as graduation approached this past May. I knew my days were counting down, even though I wasn’t ready to leave yet. As I write this, I realize that I’ve probably never been ready to leave. Even as I physically leave a city that I had grown used to behind, my mind has left a heavy anchor in the memories of the past, however rose-colored and cloudy they may be. There has not been one day where I don’t bring up college or Boston at least mentally, and that’s because in my mind, I haven’t really left. It’s not that I’m afraid to move on. It’s just that once again, I’m not ready to go. I remember thinking that I’d be happy and fulfilled as soon as I got a job…given the fact that I’m writing this, it’s clear that I was just ignorant and naive of not only the world around me, but also myself as a person.

Of course, it’s only been a month. I know that I felt this way when I first went to high school, and when I first went to Boston for college. And just like the feeling eventually passed, I hope that it passes this time as well.

Almost November??

Have not written in a long time — the workload went from 0 to 100 really quickly sometime in mid-September. One week I’m able to play League for hours and make it to 4th floor Lyons as well without worrying about quizzes or homework; the next week I don’t care that it’s 2:30 AM and I’m still up. RIP sleep, hi to enough sleep debt for high blood pressure.

That aside, I can’t believe it’s already almost November…it was around this time last year that I went to Meet the Parents and in a turn of events that I couldn’t have predicted, had a freshman year that I still very, very sorely miss. Nostalgia is a double-edged sword — it feels so good, but then you feel really sentimental afterwards *degree of sentimentality may vary per person*. Sophomore year so far hasn’t felt much different or exciting, and as a result, I still honestly feel like I’m a freshman. At this rate I’ll enter junior year feeling like a freshman too.

Maybe it’s just the classes I’m taking, maybe it’s because I’m not good at managing time, and maybe it’s just because I’m making excuses for not trying as hard in school as I should be (or maybe all three)…but I feel significantly more overwhelmed this year than last year. I’ve always been the type to run away from stress, but after doing that last year [aka playing league and staying up on Youtube], I don’t want to repeat the less than great grades I got in some of my classes. I’ve been trying to find little happinesses (happynesses? what’s the plural?) around campus. Often times we may find it hard to look outside our deadlines and papers and events, but it feels great to take a small break once in a while. BC has a very beautiful campus. We’re lucky to be able to go to college, even if the practical benefits of it (aka finding a job after graduating) are decreasing every passing year. We have a nice bed to sleep on, unless you have those creakier ones. We have good friends to talk to and confide in, as social inept as some of us may be. I personally know I am — sometimes I talk too much to one person, other times I don’t respond, other times I stare off blankly into space, the appropriate words unable to come out of my mouth.

It feels good to write every once in a while. Now to stop procrastinating and get back to the 5 assignments I have due on the same day.

Your turn

True Story

“Everyone gets a turn.”

Back in college, a close friend said that to me during a particularly sad period of my life. “Everyone gets a turn.” Something was incredibly comforting about that statement. In four words, it grounded my situation, made me feel not alone, and externalized a feeling into something with a definitive beginning and end. Many people have felt what you’ve felt and made it out just fine if not better. It’s temporary, so if anything.. “enjoy the ride.”

From that point, I sorta turned it into a weird philosophy of mine, and began seeing all emotions and situations as rides at an amusement park, something people literally have to take turns for. The park being my life and the rides covering all types of emotions. How’s that for a new take on the term “emotional rollercoaster”?

Some of my favorite rides & attractions? Well there’s awesome stuff like “Butterflies in my Stomach” Garden…

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regarding self-consciousness

There’s a part of me that can’t stand my own self-deprecation and self-consciousness [with quite occasional narcissistic undertones] anymore.

Why am I so ready to bring myself down so that others don’t need to do it for me? Why am I so self-conscious about my appearance when probably the people I trust and count on wouldn’t give a second thought about it? Why am I so afraid of actually improving on my voice, so afraid of actually trying to sing?

It’s a terrible mindset that I have — but one that I’ve become so used to and so complacent with that I’m too afraid to step out of it. I say to myself much of the time that I’ve always been passive, I’ve always had nothing I’ve been “good” at, so why should I break what my mind has always considered to be the status quo (if you bothered to click it, I apologize for the corniness)? Part of me wants so badly to be different, to change for my own betterment and mental happiness, but the part of me that’s been so used to being to being mediocre more than easily dominates that. It’s actually honestly fucking sad sometimes. Pardon my French. I’m sadly not good enough at letting the things and passions I enjoy doing take over my constant narcissistic fear of people judging my every action and step. Even though most people could care less how I sound or how I look after a few minutes, I keep on thinking about the issue – minutes, hours, days, even weeks later.

To myself, in the second person (I don’t have multiple personalities, it’s just an interesting mental exercise to write to yourself as if you were someone else :P): you’re able to write these posts, but you really, really need to actually try to get over it. Not a fake “try” where you laugh off your attempts in the face of your failures and your complacency, but a legit try. You’re almost 20 (which is still a very young age by the ways) and at this point you really need to try to get over at least some of your fears one by one. It feels comfortable to not have to do anything to change yourself, but comfortable will only plateau what you can do in your life.

writing is a catharsis

I suck at being in social situations. It’s what it is.

It wasn’t always like this. Back in the early days of elementary school (when life just meant scribbling over sheets of paper and lining up to get lunch), I was the one who would obtrusively talk to people. Back in preschool, I was the one who would start a fight with someone not sharing his or her yogurt with me (not that that’s a good thing). Somewhere along the way, this “self” gradually disappeared.

Introversion and awkwardness are a double whammy to any semblance of social adequacy. Unfortunately, I possess both. I’ve taken online Myers-Briggs personality tests multiple times, and inaccuracy aside, have consistently gotten the INFP personality type: Introversion, Intuitive, Feeling, Perception. Before I start rambling on about my thoughts, I’ll just let y’all know that I am nowhere near an expert on anything to do with personality and that whatever I write should probably be taken with less than half a grain of salt [there’s my self-deprecation coming into play!]. I’m also still very unclear as to the exact meaning of Intuitive (my gut feelings have always been more right than my overthought responses though…) and Perception (I…perceive..people..clearly? I guess? I don’t even know *shrug*), so I’ll write about that sometime in the distant or near future when I do know what they’re talking about.

Introversion + Feeling:

I feel like I don’t show it to most people, but I’m a massive cauldron of emotion. 95% of the time I’m a pretty passive person, and I try my best to keep a RBF on as much as possible, especially around people I don’t know, but I also do it in front of friends and even close friends. I am pretty sure that I’ve caused many people to think of me as pretty cold and aloof in that sense, which I promise I’m not. Pinky promise. I just don’t like being open about myself to those I don’t feel like I feel comfortable around, though I am probably being hypocritical here by posting this post.

The other 5% is crowded by my sentimentality and my anger. I’ve always been a very sentimental person. There are memories I keep in my head that others have probably long forgotten. And being a sentimental person, I find solace and sometimes sadness in those memories. This coupled with my tendency to find sad and depressing R&B songs to listen to leads to nights where I sit in front of my laptop — gloomy, wishful, and my eyebags barely holding back some salty H2O. Emotions and sentimentality aren’t bad or harmful things, but sometimes I wish I had less of them so that my mind wouldn’t feel as crowded as it does every day.

Most people haven’t seen my angry side since middle school, and I count that as a plus. My anger isn’t necessarily extreme or out of this world, but I feel like it is a very stark contrast to my usual personality, which is one of standing in the corner of a social gathering, hands on my phone or laptop, matching orbs and cursing out RNG for not giving me an I tetromino, waiting for someone to say “hi”. I often tend to bottle up my anger in order to maintain my facade of nonchalance, which often times leads to me lashing out at someone with rage far exceeding what he or she actually deserved. Although it’s extremely mentally unhealthy, I’ve often used anger and rage as motivation to help me do better in life. I don’t know when I’ll ever be able to change that, but it would be great if it could be before I graduate from college.

I always have so, so much to say in my head — but it’s so incredibly hard to force it into speech. I really wish that my life experiences had shaped me to be more outgoing, more straightforward, more extroverted — but this isn’t H.G. Wells, and I don’t have a time machine. All I can do is make do with what I have, which honestly isn’t that much.

Man, writing feels so much more releasing than speaking.

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comment to self: why isn’t there an english class about writing about feelings 😦 700 words is so much easier to write when there’s not a prompt to follow