(no subject)
Here's what my mind has been chewing on for the past few days.
My friendships are different in Maine and in Michigan. Why? The main difference that I can see: dorm life. I see my friends in Michigan an awful lot more than I ever saw friends in Maine...in high school, my relations with friends remained strong because we could all control ourselves while we were at school for a few hours at a time, sometimes repressing other things until we were safely back home again. This isn't a luxury of college life. We eat together, go to class together, share our rooms, visit each other at ridiculous times of the night. So, unerringly, we end up seeing more of a person that way...call it a more complete picture.
Does that make the friendship stronger or weaker? It seems to vary from case to case.
This is where I get to the core of what really made me feel uneasy in the past few days...that feeling of being outcast and uninformed. Since many of my friends from high school have all gone to UMaine, they've had an opportunity to see both sides of that depth I was referring to above, and adjust accordingly. It's still weird for me, and I suspect it always will be. It wouldn't have bothered me if it weren't for others in my same position seemingly having no trouble at all with it.
I suspect it's a personal problem.
This led me down a road of thought which comes from a Dave Matthews Band song (Dancing Nancies, specifically); that is, "could I have been anyone other than me?" I could have gone to UMaine. A respectable music school, an environment I'm very comfortable with, lots of people I know...sounds good, right? Instead I took a shot in the dark out in the Midwest. It worked out EXACTLY right, by some bizarre twist of fate.
What if it hadn't?
You can really hyperextend this train of thought (again, from Dave, "suppose you had taken a left, instead of taking that right...would you be someone completely different than yourself?") to really disturbing levels. I have, but I'll spare a lot of drama by not typing that out. To really drive the point home: I have spent the last few days hanging out with a group of people that seemed really happy with who they were and where they were going.
And that is the crux of my problem.
I still struggle with these thoughts every day. I feel alone and I don't want to. I want to be able to see myself in 5 years, and I can't. I have a vague trajectory, but I thought some things would be a lot more distinct than they are right now. And I wonder if somehow I've screwed everything up since...well, ever.
That really doesn't seem right, though.
My rational mind tells me I'm not the only one in this kind of quandary. My rational mind has also been wrong many times before and is awfully prone to overthinking.
Anticlimax: There's no big moment of revelation for me here. I want meaning where there seems to be none. I want belonging where I feel most outcast. I want to wrap things up tidily and end my silly ranting. But nothing seems to be that simple anymore.
I'm too young to feel this old.
My friendships are different in Maine and in Michigan. Why? The main difference that I can see: dorm life. I see my friends in Michigan an awful lot more than I ever saw friends in Maine...in high school, my relations with friends remained strong because we could all control ourselves while we were at school for a few hours at a time, sometimes repressing other things until we were safely back home again. This isn't a luxury of college life. We eat together, go to class together, share our rooms, visit each other at ridiculous times of the night. So, unerringly, we end up seeing more of a person that way...call it a more complete picture.
Does that make the friendship stronger or weaker? It seems to vary from case to case.
This is where I get to the core of what really made me feel uneasy in the past few days...that feeling of being outcast and uninformed. Since many of my friends from high school have all gone to UMaine, they've had an opportunity to see both sides of that depth I was referring to above, and adjust accordingly. It's still weird for me, and I suspect it always will be. It wouldn't have bothered me if it weren't for others in my same position seemingly having no trouble at all with it.
I suspect it's a personal problem.
This led me down a road of thought which comes from a Dave Matthews Band song (Dancing Nancies, specifically); that is, "could I have been anyone other than me?" I could have gone to UMaine. A respectable music school, an environment I'm very comfortable with, lots of people I know...sounds good, right? Instead I took a shot in the dark out in the Midwest. It worked out EXACTLY right, by some bizarre twist of fate.
What if it hadn't?
You can really hyperextend this train of thought (again, from Dave, "suppose you had taken a left, instead of taking that right...would you be someone completely different than yourself?") to really disturbing levels. I have, but I'll spare a lot of drama by not typing that out. To really drive the point home: I have spent the last few days hanging out with a group of people that seemed really happy with who they were and where they were going.
And that is the crux of my problem.
I still struggle with these thoughts every day. I feel alone and I don't want to. I want to be able to see myself in 5 years, and I can't. I have a vague trajectory, but I thought some things would be a lot more distinct than they are right now. And I wonder if somehow I've screwed everything up since...well, ever.
That really doesn't seem right, though.
My rational mind tells me I'm not the only one in this kind of quandary. My rational mind has also been wrong many times before and is awfully prone to overthinking.
Anticlimax: There's no big moment of revelation for me here. I want meaning where there seems to be none. I want belonging where I feel most outcast. I want to wrap things up tidily and end my silly ranting. But nothing seems to be that simple anymore.
I'm too young to feel this old.