hey, look who it is
The morning sun coming through my window and bouncing off my mirrored closet doors drew me out of bed far earlier than I had planned on this lazy day. I am sitting at my computer in my bathrobe and slippers, listening to the radiator hiss out its morning greetings, and thinking about how I haven't updated this thing in months. I wonder why that is, because I have so much I could say about the past several weeks of my life, and yet none of it made its way to this little page for everyone to see.
I think perhaps I'm resistant to share everything that's gone on over this past term. Since September, my life has been alternately beautiful and terrible, sometimes in such rapid succession that it feels like both at once. I split my time between being a young urban professional-- joining all the other Gap-clad members of the workforce as I made my way down to Chicago to my internship--and a college student, or at least trying to preserve this aspect of my personality which more often than not got drowned by newfound responsibilities. So while I'd like to say I lived a dual life this term: professional by day, college student by night, in truth my college student moments were confined to weekends as my internship took over my weekday life.
My experience at work was great and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'd talk about it here, but the 150+ page binder of fieldnotes I turned in to my professor yesterday proves that I've written so much about my internship already, I really don't want to do it all again. Suffice it to say, I feel like a more valuable person academically and emotionally and I loved every moment of my work, even the more difficult ones.
The problem, however, is trying to find my way back into my typical college student existence. Not just the studying and staying up late and going to classes and partying, but going back to being a student when I know now there's so much more out there for me. While I'm not ready to be out of college yet--no way, even the thought scares me--I don't think it's possible for me to pick up where my life left off at the beginning of this school year. I'm not the person I was before. I've glimpsed my future and I like it and I'm afraid to lose that vision as I'm forced back into the university bubble.
But I suppose what's really on my mind is how I'll transition back into the relationships that suffered over the last 12 weeks. I admit it: I've neglected people. I've been selfish. I was so caught up in my own experiences that I overlooked the people who have been so integral in my life thus far. I was so emotionally and physically drained from going back and forth between my two roles that I stopped even trying. Sure, some relationships have flourished: my roommates (for better or for worse), my immediate neighbors, my El-riding buddy, but any relationship that required real effort has fallen by the wayside.
And I don't know how to get them back. I don't know how to pick up where I left off, don't know if there's even anything there anymore for me to pick up. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but neglect makes it bitter and resentful. And so I'm scared that I've unintentionally done permanent damage to relationships that were important to me or relationships that could have been.
So if I hurt you, I am sorry. Give me time and let me find myself, so that I may find you again, too.
I think perhaps I'm resistant to share everything that's gone on over this past term. Since September, my life has been alternately beautiful and terrible, sometimes in such rapid succession that it feels like both at once. I split my time between being a young urban professional-- joining all the other Gap-clad members of the workforce as I made my way down to Chicago to my internship--and a college student, or at least trying to preserve this aspect of my personality which more often than not got drowned by newfound responsibilities. So while I'd like to say I lived a dual life this term: professional by day, college student by night, in truth my college student moments were confined to weekends as my internship took over my weekday life.
My experience at work was great and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I'd talk about it here, but the 150+ page binder of fieldnotes I turned in to my professor yesterday proves that I've written so much about my internship already, I really don't want to do it all again. Suffice it to say, I feel like a more valuable person academically and emotionally and I loved every moment of my work, even the more difficult ones.
The problem, however, is trying to find my way back into my typical college student existence. Not just the studying and staying up late and going to classes and partying, but going back to being a student when I know now there's so much more out there for me. While I'm not ready to be out of college yet--no way, even the thought scares me--I don't think it's possible for me to pick up where my life left off at the beginning of this school year. I'm not the person I was before. I've glimpsed my future and I like it and I'm afraid to lose that vision as I'm forced back into the university bubble.
But I suppose what's really on my mind is how I'll transition back into the relationships that suffered over the last 12 weeks. I admit it: I've neglected people. I've been selfish. I was so caught up in my own experiences that I overlooked the people who have been so integral in my life thus far. I was so emotionally and physically drained from going back and forth between my two roles that I stopped even trying. Sure, some relationships have flourished: my roommates (for better or for worse), my immediate neighbors, my El-riding buddy, but any relationship that required real effort has fallen by the wayside.
And I don't know how to get them back. I don't know how to pick up where I left off, don't know if there's even anything there anymore for me to pick up. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but neglect makes it bitter and resentful. And so I'm scared that I've unintentionally done permanent damage to relationships that were important to me or relationships that could have been.
So if I hurt you, I am sorry. Give me time and let me find myself, so that I may find you again, too.