(no subject)
We’re adults. When did that happen? … And how do we make it stop? - grey’s anatomy
This entry is written in the narrative style of Grey’s Anatomy - a show I’ve really been getting into lately - it’s between that and episodes of Early Edition and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia that lurk in a folder on my desktop, and let’s face it - EE is kinda boring now that I’m not in 5th grade, and It’s Alwys Sunny in Phila is just not that funny and doesn’t have an engrossing storyline… so medical soap opera it is! Hott! Plus, as I’m an intern here, I figured it kinda fit… But anyway, Grey's Anatomy always starts out with the main character lamenting about a certain conceptual problem/existential frustration, tho she's not always that deep, and then concludes by returning to said problem/issue and reframing it in a more optimistic light/saying it's not actually a problem after all. The above quote about adulthood fits into this framework -- She basically goes from saying that adulthood sort of sucks b/c you end up getting a huge helping of resposibility instead of milk and cookies, and she concludes by saying that, responsibility considered, adulthood isn't so bad b/c you do get great sex and drinking, and you don't have to deal with your parents telling you what time to go to bed... and well, who needs milk and cookies anyway? Like I said, her existential dilemmas aren't always that deep (and, let's face it, neither are mine or those of most people, at times), but the show's narrative style is kinda cool. I'm going to write like it now.
When you blow out the candle, one light stays aglow, it’s the love light in your heart where ‘ere you go… - kids happy birthday song
Whoever said you can’t take it with you was obviously not talking about emotional baggage. Sure, we’d all like to travel light, breeze through the security check with just a small handbag or a laptop case, or a mini-rolling suitcase that contains a toothbrush, a TSA-approved 3mm bottle of shampoo and all we’d ever really need to start life anew in a new place, but sometimes life just doesn’t work like that.
Sometimes we just sort of feel a need to over-pack, to take it all with us and arrive at the airport with two bursting full suitcases of poorly compartmentalized emotional overflow. Sometimes we want to take it with us; we all have things that we just can’t bear to leave behind, or things we toss in at the last minute, never knowing what we might need for the road ahead.
Sometimes it comes with us, whether we’d like it or not.
And lemme tell ya, the oversize baggage fees aren’t getting any lower.
The past few days in Cyprus, for me, have been about what I’ve taken here with me, what I’ve come here expecting, and, to some extent, what I’ve come here to get through.
I’ve been on my own and slightly overwhelmed; my internship has been interesting but difficult (not the work necessarily, just the social pressures to meet people, make a good impression, and perhaps find a few friends at the Embassy or at least get to know a few cool people or break into the fold…), I’ve come home exhausted (I’m staying across town from the embassy, and getting to/from work involves an hour-long walk, which I learned the hard way should absolutely never be done in uncomfortable office shoes!, or a bus ride and a 15-20 min walk... which also isn’t great to do in office shoes… I think I just hate wearing nice office/work-ish shoes, that might be the problem. But whoa, after walking home on my first day, my blisters were so profound I could barely walk!)
I feel like I’ve still been unhappy and dwelling on things, on A, on Cairo and memories of last year and jealousies, bitterness over what was, what wasn’t, and what is now. In a way I cannot pinpoint, I had let that baggage get to me more than it should have since I’ve been here. Over the summer, it was different. After a shitty last month of the spring semester, I purposely surrounded myself with the things I knew would make me happy. I sought these things out and made sure to place myself in the middle of them, whether it was Camp, friends, road trips, weddings/parties, DC, camping, swimming all the frickin time, Dunkin Donuts and American coffee, etc.
But here in Nicosia, which seems to be a fairly quiet and sleepy city at this point, I’m on my own. I hardly know anyone here yet, and by virtue of not having internet at my place, I’m fairly cut off from my friends. It’s expensive to be here and I’m ridiculously broke, so my other ‘treat yourself’ indulgences (ie, anything from a ritzy latte shop, cookies/donuts, and even travel to some extent) are not looking so feasible right now.
But now I’m gonna be happy. I’m going to do this internship here, and make it work.
I’m in the security office, combating insecurity, my own included. (Why is it, really, that I, as a person prone to insecurity, ended up studying security in college? At the time, I’d said it was b/c I wanted to understand why countries go to war. But really, can anyone understand that? Maybe up to a point you can, even though after the fact, it sometimes seems harder to comprehend. One of the reasons we learned was that often, countries go to war based on mis-assessments of their own insecurities vis a vis those of the other country, misalignments of mutual insecurities, in short. When you put it like that, people aren’t any different. It’s like that Band of Horses song, “Details of the War”).
On the happy front, today I got to swim in the ambassador’s pool! I also talked with a few more people from the Embassy and met a cool girl who’s doing the Fulbright here. Though wow, before I jumped in the water I had a moment of realization in which I asked myself if I really wanted to go out, in my bathing suit, in front of work ppl who I’d like to impress. It’s not that I don’t think I look fine, it’s that being in front of co-workers you’ve just met in a bathing suit is pretty bold, isn’t it?
And I just finished eating really good yogurt (since I’d heard that Greek yogurt is supposed to be really good… the strawberry yogurt I had this morning was pretty nasty, but this one was great!).
I’m paying 25 Euro to go on the cruise w the embassy people in Northern Cyprus this weekend. It’s money I don’t really have, but whatever. I deserve it. And I want to take pictures of beautiful things.
I still need to find out what Cyprus is to me.
At the end of the day, what we take with us is what makes us who we are. When we again find ourselves alone in a new place, it’s all we have to establish continuity between who we were, who we are, and who we will become.
And don’t forget, emotional baggage isn’t always a negative weight. There are friendships from afar, memories, lessons learned and a certain ironic beauty that comes when the dust settles and when you realize that no matter how careful your preparations, life’s a trip through many unknown destinations, one that turns out far differently from what you ever would have foreseen but makes you don bright blue sunglasses, a Hello Kitty shirt and scrub pants, and grin at yourself for no reason in a Cypriot mirror nonetheless.
You can take it with you, so you might as well take the adventure with you, too.
"but it all fits into morning, and you open your eyes” - how is it that Belle & Sebastian have a song that captures literally everything I’m feeling at so many moments of my life?
This entry is written in the narrative style of Grey’s Anatomy - a show I’ve really been getting into lately - it’s between that and episodes of Early Edition and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia that lurk in a folder on my desktop, and let’s face it - EE is kinda boring now that I’m not in 5th grade, and It’s Alwys Sunny in Phila is just not that funny and doesn’t have an engrossing storyline… so medical soap opera it is! Hott! Plus, as I’m an intern here, I figured it kinda fit… But anyway, Grey's Anatomy always starts out with the main character lamenting about a certain conceptual problem/existential frustration, tho she's not always that deep, and then concludes by returning to said problem/issue and reframing it in a more optimistic light/saying it's not actually a problem after all. The above quote about adulthood fits into this framework -- She basically goes from saying that adulthood sort of sucks b/c you end up getting a huge helping of resposibility instead of milk and cookies, and she concludes by saying that, responsibility considered, adulthood isn't so bad b/c you do get great sex and drinking, and you don't have to deal with your parents telling you what time to go to bed... and well, who needs milk and cookies anyway? Like I said, her existential dilemmas aren't always that deep (and, let's face it, neither are mine or those of most people, at times), but the show's narrative style is kinda cool. I'm going to write like it now.
When you blow out the candle, one light stays aglow, it’s the love light in your heart where ‘ere you go… - kids happy birthday song
Whoever said you can’t take it with you was obviously not talking about emotional baggage. Sure, we’d all like to travel light, breeze through the security check with just a small handbag or a laptop case, or a mini-rolling suitcase that contains a toothbrush, a TSA-approved 3mm bottle of shampoo and all we’d ever really need to start life anew in a new place, but sometimes life just doesn’t work like that.
Sometimes we just sort of feel a need to over-pack, to take it all with us and arrive at the airport with two bursting full suitcases of poorly compartmentalized emotional overflow. Sometimes we want to take it with us; we all have things that we just can’t bear to leave behind, or things we toss in at the last minute, never knowing what we might need for the road ahead.
Sometimes it comes with us, whether we’d like it or not.
And lemme tell ya, the oversize baggage fees aren’t getting any lower.
The past few days in Cyprus, for me, have been about what I’ve taken here with me, what I’ve come here expecting, and, to some extent, what I’ve come here to get through.
I’ve been on my own and slightly overwhelmed; my internship has been interesting but difficult (not the work necessarily, just the social pressures to meet people, make a good impression, and perhaps find a few friends at the Embassy or at least get to know a few cool people or break into the fold…), I’ve come home exhausted (I’m staying across town from the embassy, and getting to/from work involves an hour-long walk, which I learned the hard way should absolutely never be done in uncomfortable office shoes!, or a bus ride and a 15-20 min walk... which also isn’t great to do in office shoes… I think I just hate wearing nice office/work-ish shoes, that might be the problem. But whoa, after walking home on my first day, my blisters were so profound I could barely walk!)
I feel like I’ve still been unhappy and dwelling on things, on A, on Cairo and memories of last year and jealousies, bitterness over what was, what wasn’t, and what is now. In a way I cannot pinpoint, I had let that baggage get to me more than it should have since I’ve been here. Over the summer, it was different. After a shitty last month of the spring semester, I purposely surrounded myself with the things I knew would make me happy. I sought these things out and made sure to place myself in the middle of them, whether it was Camp, friends, road trips, weddings/parties, DC, camping, swimming all the frickin time, Dunkin Donuts and American coffee, etc.
But here in Nicosia, which seems to be a fairly quiet and sleepy city at this point, I’m on my own. I hardly know anyone here yet, and by virtue of not having internet at my place, I’m fairly cut off from my friends. It’s expensive to be here and I’m ridiculously broke, so my other ‘treat yourself’ indulgences (ie, anything from a ritzy latte shop, cookies/donuts, and even travel to some extent) are not looking so feasible right now.
But now I’m gonna be happy. I’m going to do this internship here, and make it work.
I’m in the security office, combating insecurity, my own included. (Why is it, really, that I, as a person prone to insecurity, ended up studying security in college? At the time, I’d said it was b/c I wanted to understand why countries go to war. But really, can anyone understand that? Maybe up to a point you can, even though after the fact, it sometimes seems harder to comprehend. One of the reasons we learned was that often, countries go to war based on mis-assessments of their own insecurities vis a vis those of the other country, misalignments of mutual insecurities, in short. When you put it like that, people aren’t any different. It’s like that Band of Horses song, “Details of the War”).
On the happy front, today I got to swim in the ambassador’s pool! I also talked with a few more people from the Embassy and met a cool girl who’s doing the Fulbright here. Though wow, before I jumped in the water I had a moment of realization in which I asked myself if I really wanted to go out, in my bathing suit, in front of work ppl who I’d like to impress. It’s not that I don’t think I look fine, it’s that being in front of co-workers you’ve just met in a bathing suit is pretty bold, isn’t it?
And I just finished eating really good yogurt (since I’d heard that Greek yogurt is supposed to be really good… the strawberry yogurt I had this morning was pretty nasty, but this one was great!).
I’m paying 25 Euro to go on the cruise w the embassy people in Northern Cyprus this weekend. It’s money I don’t really have, but whatever. I deserve it. And I want to take pictures of beautiful things.
I still need to find out what Cyprus is to me.
At the end of the day, what we take with us is what makes us who we are. When we again find ourselves alone in a new place, it’s all we have to establish continuity between who we were, who we are, and who we will become.
And don’t forget, emotional baggage isn’t always a negative weight. There are friendships from afar, memories, lessons learned and a certain ironic beauty that comes when the dust settles and when you realize that no matter how careful your preparations, life’s a trip through many unknown destinations, one that turns out far differently from what you ever would have foreseen but makes you don bright blue sunglasses, a Hello Kitty shirt and scrub pants, and grin at yourself for no reason in a Cypriot mirror nonetheless.
You can take it with you, so you might as well take the adventure with you, too.
"but it all fits into morning, and you open your eyes” - how is it that Belle & Sebastian have a song that captures literally everything I’m feeling at so many moments of my life?