late summer again
I feel like I should start writing here again because otherwise i won't feel beholden to anything in my past or in america when I leave in two months. very little matters, already -- I've felt for weeks now like i'm just about to leave, like there's no point in buying groceries because I won't have time to eat them all, and now i feel like I'm on vacation in a beloved but foreign city.
Chicago this summer feels like the fall of two years ago. the crisp air starts my eagerness rushing up in me, an automatic reaction like sap rising, but there's nothing to expend it on yet. it's been two years now since the last time but i'm fairly sure i'm falling in love, which is unfortunate timing seeing as how i'm leaving in a month and a half; it's also impossible to have reciprocated.
Spending so much time with a 28 year old has made me realize how much circumstance influences our relationships with others, not just in terms of physically bringing people together but also by establishing a common frame of reference through which two people can communicate. Not a particularly profound realization, but I didn't know how far this extended -- I always thought that I was mature enough to be friends with grad students, professors, people of all ages outside of academia, but I'm floundering here and the worst part is that I can't really improve myself except by getting older. I can talk with someone at the university about Chicago, Hyde Park, and academic things, and to other college-aged people about moving away from home, social things, and all the little epiphanies like this one we're having. But my interaction with people who've a) already gone through moving out, establishing their own identity, etc. and b) don't care about Derrida or tectonics is limited to music, current events, and small talk. Everything I'm consumed with right now (and granted, I'm also somewhat self-absorbed) is obvious to him; my constant self-consciousness is considered to be an artifact of naivete. I never thought myself to be naive, but maybe that's the point.
I hope that at least being abroad will force me through some strange experience, bring me out sharper, more. and if nothing else, I'll be 21 when I return. until then I guess I hide and fret as usual?
Chicago this summer feels like the fall of two years ago. the crisp air starts my eagerness rushing up in me, an automatic reaction like sap rising, but there's nothing to expend it on yet. it's been two years now since the last time but i'm fairly sure i'm falling in love, which is unfortunate timing seeing as how i'm leaving in a month and a half; it's also impossible to have reciprocated.
Spending so much time with a 28 year old has made me realize how much circumstance influences our relationships with others, not just in terms of physically bringing people together but also by establishing a common frame of reference through which two people can communicate. Not a particularly profound realization, but I didn't know how far this extended -- I always thought that I was mature enough to be friends with grad students, professors, people of all ages outside of academia, but I'm floundering here and the worst part is that I can't really improve myself except by getting older. I can talk with someone at the university about Chicago, Hyde Park, and academic things, and to other college-aged people about moving away from home, social things, and all the little epiphanies like this one we're having. But my interaction with people who've a) already gone through moving out, establishing their own identity, etc. and b) don't care about Derrida or tectonics is limited to music, current events, and small talk. Everything I'm consumed with right now (and granted, I'm also somewhat self-absorbed) is obvious to him; my constant self-consciousness is considered to be an artifact of naivete. I never thought myself to be naive, but maybe that's the point.
I hope that at least being abroad will force me through some strange experience, bring me out sharper, more. and if nothing else, I'll be 21 when I return. until then I guess I hide and fret as usual?