(no subject)
I have had a number of moments in the past few days that have involved my mind, a long rambling internal monologue/catalouguing of my stream of consciousness that have ended with the thought, I should write that down. Considering it has been almost two months since I last posted (and thus, written anything that wasn't school related) and considering the few very important changes in my life since the last time I wrote, I suppose it is normal to have my thoughts just bubbling up out of me. The truth is, I haven't had a very strong urge to write in a long time, despite the things I need to process. Introspection, observation/research and analysis. That is the rubric I follow in order to decide things about myself, in order to attempt to come to a better understanding of who I am. Introspection has definitely been there, research and observation have been lacking (I haven't been a very social creature for the last little bit... thus I am unable to observe the human condition and my relationship with it) and analysis has been completely lacking (I feel like I wrote this already... I did, I wrote about it back in august. Mainly about the lack of analysis). I have been shooting from the hip for the past few months. Some of the choices I made back then are totally valid and I support them. Some of the choices led me to here, where I withdrew (I started to write "dropped out," but that phrase is better suited for allusion to my inner state of mind, not as my actual definitive response to me not attending plu anymore) from classes two weeks before the end of the semester.
Most, maybe only some, of you knew this already. Word travels fast in parkland. And this is where writers block really steps in because the question following that statement is, "What are you ding now/going to do next?" The answer is that I don't know, if only because I have not rigorously analyzed my choices in order to make the best decision. At the very least, I am in a holding pattern until the end of may, when the lease expires on the house I am in. I do have three options, though, with a possible fourth absolutely crazy idea...
1. Anchorage - I've decided that although I have had less than fond experiences living back in anchorage, a lot of that has been centered around the fact that I have been living at home when I go back. It isn't that it is bad to be living at home, it is just kind of grating (like when you are dating a 34 year old woman and you have to stay at her place all the time... it would be like that with any woman you were dating; you couldn't bring them home. But when you are fighting to maintain some level of dignity and maturity in the face of a woman twelve years your senior, the automatic negative points from living at home are blatant). My ability to discern exactly what it is that drives me crazy/makes me depressed, what my triggers are, is less than stellar. For all my attempts at self-analysis, at rigorous self-analysis even, I am not very good at it. I think that I have a vague idea of who I am, but I also think that I am an intense state of flux, much akin to the limbo feeling I feel when I go back to anchorage, a feeling that is rooted (I can discern the cause of frustration and sadness in this case) in the fact that when I am in anchorage, the people who I have made into my home have been three-thousand miles away. While I have made communities there (especially this last summer when I met a lot of new people who were realy amazing), I have always operated under the presumption that I will be going back to tacoma at the end of the summer. You can't throw down deep roots in a place that you know you will be leaving in a few months. The point is maybe I haven't given Anchorage a chance. But do I want to move back to the motherland on the chance that it is my actual home, the place I want to throw down roots? And it is a slim chance. I hate the cold. I don't mind the snow too much, but the cold is ridiculous. The other plus, though, is I could have a job serving at a restaurant as soon as I got off of the plane... moneymoneymoney. Another negative is that the cost of living is so high there.
Anchorage has ceased to be a dream city for me, a surreal place that is filled to the brim with memories waiting to be recalled on every corner. Sure I have a lot of history there, but it is not nearly the awkward strange place that it was the summer of 2006. That has a lot to do with the healing of my relationship with jenny. Old, deep wounds, even if they are self-inflicted, take a long time to heal. I had a conversation with a professor five days before I withdrew about depression and how a lot of the process of recovery is centered around turning around one's mental patterns. Dismantling them, even. A part of me is afraid to commit myself to therapy and healing my damaged psyche because I am scared of this, of dismantling my self, my thought processes. It seems extremely obvious that that is what should happen, that one should not be afraid to question one's assumptions, to doubt everything, especially one's self.
But I digress.
On the subject of depression and recovery, the therapist that I have at least a semblance of a connection with (that is to say, I saw him for five months this past time I was home) is back in Anchorage, which would save me the arduous task of finding a therapist I could work with...
I don't know. Anchorage is a tenuous place.
2. Seattle - I dig the city, for sure. If I had a full time job bussing/serving at a restaurant in the city itself, I could easily pay for a place for myself or share one with another. Seattle has none of the bad history anchorage has. Rather, I have little to no history there, apart from the scattered visits I have made over the past few years with friends (read: nick), although a few memories resurfaced when I went to Uwajimaya with Nick and Walker a few days ago... Mostly good, but also bittersweet... I don't feel like elaborating further on that subject. Seattle is mostly a fantasy, one built around having no car and bussing/walking/riding a bike. I also have an underutilized friend base there. It could be good.
3. Portland - This is where I am leaning heavily. I also have an underutilized friend base there, my brother will be moving down in a few weeks, of the three cities I am thinking about, it is the one I love the most. Again, a lot of that is an idealized fantasy of what I imagine it could be. There are a few paloo kids there, and a shit-ton of Alaska kids there. I would have no trouble fitting in with that community, both the community of kids I already know and the city at large, I feel.
4. (entirely tentative and only hatched up three days ago while driving to work) Parkland/Tacoma - I have a decent job here right now, I could stay and... take the capstone again next fall. A number of plusses associated with this one, taking steps to actually getting my fucking degree that I am only one year away from completing for christssake. An attempt at really conquering something that has eluded me the past few years, being an active, engaged and successful student. Finishing what I fucking start. (I am not positive, but there is a large chance that this choice will end up being a huge digression. fuck, if you made it this far, what are a few more paragraphs of rambling to you? You will soak it up like the greedy bitches you are... (that insult is only really so someone who actually reads this whole piece of shit can comment on the fact that I referred to my readership as "greedy bitches..")) If there is a level of bitterness that is being exhibited in this section, it is because a lot of my current level of depression, starting early in the semester, is centered around the fact that I have not been able to adequately do school, that is, to my standards, that is, completing all the classes I register for, since my sophomore year of college. What happened? What changed? One of my favorite past times for awhile was to count up all my credits, remembering which classes I took what semester and year, etc. In looking back on it, three of the four semesters that compose my freshman and sophomore years, I took sixteen or seventeen credits; not registered for sixteen or seventeen credits, but took and passed sixteen or seventeen credits worth of classes. And I liked school. Starting fall of my junior year, though, I had an intense inability to get shit done. I dropped three classes that year and didn't take a j-term at all. The next year was my incredibly inept semester where I only received four credits, despite the fact that I was in classes for eight credits... and finished eight credits. I don't want to talk about it. and the break, which was, in theory supposed to be the time I healed and got myself in a place where I would be able to actually do school. Hah! (wry). Obviously not. So here I am.
There is more here, a lot more here, but I don't feel like writing anymore tonight. I figure this glut is enough for me to start mulling over and refining.
More to come later, I promise.
Most, maybe only some, of you knew this already. Word travels fast in parkland. And this is where writers block really steps in because the question following that statement is, "What are you ding now/going to do next?" The answer is that I don't know, if only because I have not rigorously analyzed my choices in order to make the best decision. At the very least, I am in a holding pattern until the end of may, when the lease expires on the house I am in. I do have three options, though, with a possible fourth absolutely crazy idea...
1. Anchorage - I've decided that although I have had less than fond experiences living back in anchorage, a lot of that has been centered around the fact that I have been living at home when I go back. It isn't that it is bad to be living at home, it is just kind of grating (like when you are dating a 34 year old woman and you have to stay at her place all the time... it would be like that with any woman you were dating; you couldn't bring them home. But when you are fighting to maintain some level of dignity and maturity in the face of a woman twelve years your senior, the automatic negative points from living at home are blatant). My ability to discern exactly what it is that drives me crazy/makes me depressed, what my triggers are, is less than stellar. For all my attempts at self-analysis, at rigorous self-analysis even, I am not very good at it. I think that I have a vague idea of who I am, but I also think that I am an intense state of flux, much akin to the limbo feeling I feel when I go back to anchorage, a feeling that is rooted (I can discern the cause of frustration and sadness in this case) in the fact that when I am in anchorage, the people who I have made into my home have been three-thousand miles away. While I have made communities there (especially this last summer when I met a lot of new people who were realy amazing), I have always operated under the presumption that I will be going back to tacoma at the end of the summer. You can't throw down deep roots in a place that you know you will be leaving in a few months. The point is maybe I haven't given Anchorage a chance. But do I want to move back to the motherland on the chance that it is my actual home, the place I want to throw down roots? And it is a slim chance. I hate the cold. I don't mind the snow too much, but the cold is ridiculous. The other plus, though, is I could have a job serving at a restaurant as soon as I got off of the plane... moneymoneymoney. Another negative is that the cost of living is so high there.
Anchorage has ceased to be a dream city for me, a surreal place that is filled to the brim with memories waiting to be recalled on every corner. Sure I have a lot of history there, but it is not nearly the awkward strange place that it was the summer of 2006. That has a lot to do with the healing of my relationship with jenny. Old, deep wounds, even if they are self-inflicted, take a long time to heal. I had a conversation with a professor five days before I withdrew about depression and how a lot of the process of recovery is centered around turning around one's mental patterns. Dismantling them, even. A part of me is afraid to commit myself to therapy and healing my damaged psyche because I am scared of this, of dismantling my self, my thought processes. It seems extremely obvious that that is what should happen, that one should not be afraid to question one's assumptions, to doubt everything, especially one's self.
But I digress.
On the subject of depression and recovery, the therapist that I have at least a semblance of a connection with (that is to say, I saw him for five months this past time I was home) is back in Anchorage, which would save me the arduous task of finding a therapist I could work with...
I don't know. Anchorage is a tenuous place.
2. Seattle - I dig the city, for sure. If I had a full time job bussing/serving at a restaurant in the city itself, I could easily pay for a place for myself or share one with another. Seattle has none of the bad history anchorage has. Rather, I have little to no history there, apart from the scattered visits I have made over the past few years with friends (read: nick), although a few memories resurfaced when I went to Uwajimaya with Nick and Walker a few days ago... Mostly good, but also bittersweet... I don't feel like elaborating further on that subject. Seattle is mostly a fantasy, one built around having no car and bussing/walking/riding a bike. I also have an underutilized friend base there. It could be good.
3. Portland - This is where I am leaning heavily. I also have an underutilized friend base there, my brother will be moving down in a few weeks, of the three cities I am thinking about, it is the one I love the most. Again, a lot of that is an idealized fantasy of what I imagine it could be. There are a few paloo kids there, and a shit-ton of Alaska kids there. I would have no trouble fitting in with that community, both the community of kids I already know and the city at large, I feel.
4. (entirely tentative and only hatched up three days ago while driving to work) Parkland/Tacoma - I have a decent job here right now, I could stay and... take the capstone again next fall. A number of plusses associated with this one, taking steps to actually getting my fucking degree that I am only one year away from completing for christssake. An attempt at really conquering something that has eluded me the past few years, being an active, engaged and successful student. Finishing what I fucking start. (I am not positive, but there is a large chance that this choice will end up being a huge digression. fuck, if you made it this far, what are a few more paragraphs of rambling to you? You will soak it up like the greedy bitches you are... (that insult is only really so someone who actually reads this whole piece of shit can comment on the fact that I referred to my readership as "greedy bitches..")) If there is a level of bitterness that is being exhibited in this section, it is because a lot of my current level of depression, starting early in the semester, is centered around the fact that I have not been able to adequately do school, that is, to my standards, that is, completing all the classes I register for, since my sophomore year of college. What happened? What changed? One of my favorite past times for awhile was to count up all my credits, remembering which classes I took what semester and year, etc. In looking back on it, three of the four semesters that compose my freshman and sophomore years, I took sixteen or seventeen credits; not registered for sixteen or seventeen credits, but took and passed sixteen or seventeen credits worth of classes. And I liked school. Starting fall of my junior year, though, I had an intense inability to get shit done. I dropped three classes that year and didn't take a j-term at all. The next year was my incredibly inept semester where I only received four credits, despite the fact that I was in classes for eight credits... and finished eight credits. I don't want to talk about it. and the break, which was, in theory supposed to be the time I healed and got myself in a place where I would be able to actually do school. Hah! (wry). Obviously not. So here I am.
There is more here, a lot more here, but I don't feel like writing anymore tonight. I figure this glut is enough for me to start mulling over and refining.
More to come later, I promise.