(no subject)
I was walking back to my dorm with a Nick last night, and in the moment of mundane frustration of walking the same route home after yet another long Monday... I exclaimed, "I can't wait to get the fuck out of here!!". I said it with a little laugh and mostly in reference to how excited I am to go to Australia. Yet, it bubbled up with in me too because I'm getting annoyed and nervous about my reputation at this school (as I was walking back to my neighborhood with Nick after hanging out on campus and getting no less than two text messages asking me about him), worried because I've been introduced into some social circles that I'm not sure I want to be a part of but I'm also not sure if I can escape. So I want to leave before I get cornered, before people judge me. He sort of looked at me shocked and then he muttered, "Oh you're one of those". I think it's interesting how guys who may sort of possibly perhaps getting attatched to me get startled when I reveal my nomadic nature. Men fundamentally want a woman who will not leave them. I leave.
On another level, as we talked about it a little bit, he said, "Are you afraid someone may begin to understand who you are?" I smiled, because he was so dead on, and said, "Probably." The interesting part is though, how my willingness to travel and move around makes me a more complicated person. So, 1st, when I physically move I become inaccessible because I'm simply not there. And 2nd, when I am settled in somewhere, it takes three times as long to unravel who I am exactly because I have so many parts collected from so many diverse histories. Or alternatively, in some ways, I'll never be understood. There will never be someone to share all parts of me. I talked to Claire on the phone yesterday... the stories we exchanged... my god. The conversation was fundamentally exclusive, no one would have any idea what we were talking about. No one knows the people we were talking about, and there's no way to know them the way that we know them because in a way, the people we knew and were in highschool just don't exist anymore. I miss my friends from NMH so much, but in a lot of ways, I know that those people are dead. We have all gone our separate ways and removed ourselves from any sort of similar familier circumstances that defined us before. The way that I speak, the way that I think, my reactions to current events... all depend on past experiences. (I guess I'm affirming that we are simply products of our social and physical environmentst, but how nice that we live in a modern age and that I am a priveleged white girl who can choose to change and pick my social and physical environments on whim. At least the layers of past influences make me more interesting. The combinations specific to me make me a somewhat unique individual. I love that when I have a few drinks in me and really feel like embracing who I am, I slip between a slight British accent and a lovely Jersey slang "ya". It's not directly intentional but those accents, my speech were formulated from collecting from my past.) It made me pause for a minute though, when I thought about how well Nick listens to stories I tell. Creating a personal narrative to understand one's life is a serious undertaking, I feel like I've finally reached a maturity and an awareness and an acceptance of my life events that I have a pretty sweet concise understandable narrative that I am happy with, and a lot of times I don't worry about the objective truth in it. My life is subjective, I don't know if it could ever be anything but subjective. But that's also why people from my past (like Claire) are so important to me because sometimes you need a reality check of who you are. I don't want to create who I am, I want it to have some real basis in the common world. Sometimes, though, he isn't interested in my self-explanations and my self-descriptions. And part of me feels slighted when I offer such an insightful gift, but then I also realize that living in the moment and discovering who I am RIGHT NOW is much more important. And isn't that one of the biggest issues of trust between two people? While building a relationship (this is not limited to romantic relationships) two people have to trust that they are attempting to represent themselves honestly. If you love someone, if you're fascinated by them, and want to know them... but one of the worst things in the world is uncovering the fallacies of someone's self-perception.
On another level, as we talked about it a little bit, he said, "Are you afraid someone may begin to understand who you are?" I smiled, because he was so dead on, and said, "Probably." The interesting part is though, how my willingness to travel and move around makes me a more complicated person. So, 1st, when I physically move I become inaccessible because I'm simply not there. And 2nd, when I am settled in somewhere, it takes three times as long to unravel who I am exactly because I have so many parts collected from so many diverse histories. Or alternatively, in some ways, I'll never be understood. There will never be someone to share all parts of me. I talked to Claire on the phone yesterday... the stories we exchanged... my god. The conversation was fundamentally exclusive, no one would have any idea what we were talking about. No one knows the people we were talking about, and there's no way to know them the way that we know them because in a way, the people we knew and were in highschool just don't exist anymore. I miss my friends from NMH so much, but in a lot of ways, I know that those people are dead. We have all gone our separate ways and removed ourselves from any sort of similar familier circumstances that defined us before. The way that I speak, the way that I think, my reactions to current events... all depend on past experiences. (I guess I'm affirming that we are simply products of our social and physical environmentst, but how nice that we live in a modern age and that I am a priveleged white girl who can choose to change and pick my social and physical environments on whim. At least the layers of past influences make me more interesting. The combinations specific to me make me a somewhat unique individual. I love that when I have a few drinks in me and really feel like embracing who I am, I slip between a slight British accent and a lovely Jersey slang "ya". It's not directly intentional but those accents, my speech were formulated from collecting from my past.) It made me pause for a minute though, when I thought about how well Nick listens to stories I tell. Creating a personal narrative to understand one's life is a serious undertaking, I feel like I've finally reached a maturity and an awareness and an acceptance of my life events that I have a pretty sweet concise understandable narrative that I am happy with, and a lot of times I don't worry about the objective truth in it. My life is subjective, I don't know if it could ever be anything but subjective. But that's also why people from my past (like Claire) are so important to me because sometimes you need a reality check of who you are. I don't want to create who I am, I want it to have some real basis in the common world. Sometimes, though, he isn't interested in my self-explanations and my self-descriptions. And part of me feels slighted when I offer such an insightful gift, but then I also realize that living in the moment and discovering who I am RIGHT NOW is much more important. And isn't that one of the biggest issues of trust between two people? While building a relationship (this is not limited to romantic relationships) two people have to trust that they are attempting to represent themselves honestly. If you love someone, if you're fascinated by them, and want to know them... but one of the worst things in the world is uncovering the fallacies of someone's self-perception.