Pre-Nostalgia

Weird how fluctuating hormones can change my whole perspective on life. On Sunday afternoon, I told my mom in all earnestness that “This is the worst year ever.” And while it’s true that this year is presenting its certain challenges (like making friends, for example), I think that my lament was largely hormone-fueled. Because by Tuesday, the bitch-colored glasses I seem to have been wearing all last week sort of fell of my head, and suddenly there was beauty in the world again.

So yesterday, as I stepped out my perfectly gray, perfectly still, perfectly quite cubicle to get some lunch and some sunlight, it was suddenly obvious to me that, although this the worst year ever from  time-to-time (apparently one week a month), it’s also a year that I’m going to look back on with extreme wistfulness once it’s over.

First, this should be established: I have been an extremely negative person since I came into consciousness. My sippy cup was definitely half empty, and now my ceramic to-go mug is, too. I think society should give negative people a break! We were born this way! But that’s another post for another time…

What I was getting at is, I am extremely negative person, but I always always look back on the past with fondness. This an incredibly annoying personal habit, but it’s one I can’t seem to break. Especially asinine is the fact that I am even nostalgic for periods of my life that weren’t even enjoyable when they were actually happening. Sometimes I’m all, “Hey, remember when I had 8:30am classes four days a week and lived in a tiny apartment located next to both a power plant and what I think was a burgeoning trash dump? Oh man. Those were the days.” 

I really don’t expect you to understand it, because I don’t either. But it’s almost like the fact that a certain period in my life has been proven to be survivable (by the fact that I survived it, natch) qualifies it as nostalgia-worthy. In fact, just about the only expanse of time that I don’t’ have nostalgia for is fourth through eighth grade (the cool girls and their lunch table, remember?). 

But anyway, two days ago I was just really struck by the fact that I would badly miss this time in my life when it’s over. Which is almost definitely a sign of emotional maturity, no? 

A few reasons why Future Me will be nostalgia-ing hard for August 2011 through March 2012:

1.        I have practically no responsibility at work.

“But why are you glad you don’t have responsibility at work?” the layperson may ask. “Haven’t you any dreams and goals, haven’t you a vision?” (Because apparently the layperson is from 1935.) Well, the answer is no. I don’t currently have anything but extremely amorphous and ill-defined dreams and goals, and my vision is practically non-existent. And for that reason, I’m happy to just cruise along for now, and attempt to better-define my dreams, goals, and visions in my spare time. Also, how excellent is it that:

1.a: I can leave work for two hour “lunch breaks” and go shopping and

1.b: I make it a point to totally erase all thoughts of work from my mind before I leave the office every evening?

2.      I have very few financial responsibilities.

So I don’t make much at my job, but rent is practically peanuts, I have no children to feed and clothe, and I rarely have to put gas in my car. This is really really nice. I hardly even have to bother with budgeting, and I love knowing that I can just up and move pretty much whenever.

3.     I am single.

This also probably sounds counterintuitive to the layperson, but it really is kind of nice to be single. Don’t get me wrong: my ex-boyfriend (Blarf, I hate that term. It sounds both bitchy and immature. He will from now on be referred to as my repurposed man partner.) is one of the best people I know, and our relationship was a good one. But long term relationships can feel kind of limiting. Well actually, they are kind of limiting. Being single makes the future feel infinite again, in a way that it hasn't for a long time.

4.     I am both happy with and comfortable in my body.

Being twenty-two is certainly not a bad age to be, physically speaking. My skin is still wrinkle free, my metabolism still works properly, and I like the amount of muscle tone that I’ve been able to develop. Plus, the competitive dieting that seems to florish for some reason among high school girls, and the body-awkwardness of middle school are mere memories. Because I now feel comfortable with my body, I have the confidence to make slightly more daring fashion choices, like high heels and dark lipstick.(I am not, however, happy and comfortable with my twenty-two year old hair, but again, another post for another time.)

5.    I have enough free time to attempt just about every possible hobby

No  homework, few work responsibilities, and no family to take care of all amount to ample free time. So far, I’ve attempted thrifting, sewing, gardening, and interior design. Plus I can run every day. And  watch TV and movies. And read whatever I want!

6.   I have kitties!

No elaboration necessary beyond this:

Wow, after typing out that list, my life seems practically awesome. Quite the exercise these “gratitude lists” are. I can see why they’re so popular with the SAHM crowd.

On International Travel:

In my life, I have traveled internationally three times. In 2010, I went to Jamaica and Mexico, and then, this summer, I went to Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. I know I haven’t seen a lot compared to many of my contemporaries, but I’ve traveled enough to get a feel for the routine of it.

I think that international travel is important, and I’m grateful for my experiences. I think it broadens your horizons, and makes you rethink your position in the world, and blah, blah, blah.  But I’m not sure if I can honestly say that I think that international travel is fun. 

I know kids who can’t seem to stay in the country. The minute they return from a trip, they are planning to go somewhere else, and they are having a great time. I don’t understand these kids, because when I returned from Europe, I didn’t even want to leave my house for like two months. 

I think that what makes international travel so overwhelming/exhausting/arduous for me is that it puts my life all out of context.

Let me explain: When I’m wandering around a foreign country either with one other person I know well (as I was in Europe and Jamaica) or with a group of people I don’t know at all (as I was in Mexico), all the little routines, sights, sounds, and interactions that give me meaning are gone. It makes me panic sometimes, especially when I’m mostly alone, thousands of miles away from anything familiar, looking at something really really beautiful. I look at the beautiful thing, e.g. vineyards in the Adige Valley:

an alpine lake:

or cenotes in the Yucatan:

And I feel overwhelmingly terrible because the beautiful thing is so irrelevant to my life. And also, I think, because it represents enormous spans of time, and because it reminds me that I have no control over anything. And also maybe because I’m sad to know that none of it, not even enormous mountains, are permanent.

Another psychologically challenging aspect of stopping through all these cool places for weeks or months is realizing that random chance plops people down in their specific circumstances. And realizing that the fact that I took my first breath in a hospital in rural southern West Virginia meant that I would never grow up in Viennese row house, or ride my bike to school through a cobblestone piazza in northern Italy, or live in a corrugated tin house just feet above the Caribbean, or be trilingual, or, or, or…claim any number of alternative realities as my life. It’s not so much that I feel cheated by my own geographical circumstances—obviously there are worse lives to be born into than small town, middle class, American ones—it’s more that travel brings to the forefront of my mind how arbitrary it is, and it makes me think of the infinite alternatives.

It may sound like my negativity is causing me to fail to appreciate the beauty that I have had the privilege to witness, but I want to make it clear that I really do appreciate and fully grasp the profundity of my travel experiences. It’s just that travel seems to affect me differently than it affects most people.

For one thing, it makes me appreciate coming home to my little town where I am not irrelevant—my own arbitrary reality—where my daily routine is predicable, where I am confident that I will be able to order a water correctly, where the beauty is maybe smaller and less grand but is definitely easier to stomach. Back to my small reality where am I not constantly being assaulted by the infinite, because the infinite is hidden behind the merciful mask of the day-to-day.

Twenty-Two

This is a public confession: I think I peaked in high school.

I wasn't cool, or even especially well-liked. I wasn't a cheerleader and I never had a boyfriend. I didn't go to parties. I'm not the kind of person you think of when you think of when of peaking in high school. Still, I believe it's the truth.

Here's the thing: I was a geek in high school, and I studied way more than necessary, and I overachieved, and I rarely defied my parents, all with this illusory fantastic future in mind. But I also had a group of friends. And we did things together. And we hung out on the weekends. Some of them partook in parent-defying behavior when they weren’t with me; others didn’t. But they were there for me often, and we listened to the same music, and we read the same books—we were a cohesive social group.

It took me awhile to get there. I can remember being younger, thirteen maybe, and being alone, and desperately wanting a certain group of girls to like me, and being confused about why they didn’t. But then I went to a high school with double the enrollment of my middle school, and I located a handful of people that were more like me (my people, if you will), and I forgot about those other girls. This made me look forward to college, when the pool of possible friends would again grow, this time exponentially.

But I never really found my people in college. Yes, I made a few friends, but they didn’t listen to the same music as me, and they didn’t read the same books as me. I was not a part of a cohesive social group—there was never that easy and basic understanding amongst my college friends and I that yes, of course, we would hang out together on the weekends. And I never really got the point where I enjoyed house parties, and bars still make me unreasonably nervous. So a lot of times, I stayed in and watched TV.

And now that I’m a twenty-two-year-old college graduate, I’ve found myself feeling a little like I did in middle school. Why is it that I’m alone most of the time? Where are my people? Why don’t the girls at the cool lunch table like me?!?

But seriously, I’ve been thinking about it a lot lately, and I think the problem is that in college I sort of abandoned the structured social events (clubs, sports, etc.) that had, in high school, allowed a person as painfully introverted and socially anxious as me to make friends. Because the friends I did make in college sort of shunned these things and I also willingly shunned them because I wanted to distance myself from the overachieving, trying-too-hard person that I had been.

Maybe I shouldn’t have, though, because there is nothing harder for me than actively seeking out social engagements. The fear of rejection is seriously crippling. I always begin to call someone that I haven’t seen in a while, and then the following occurs to me: Wouldn’t they have called me if they wanted to hang out me? What will we do? Oh god what if they want to go to a bar and I order a drink wrong?! Aren’t they probably already busy with their significant other? Aren’t they probably busy with/tired from their super awesome life/job?

So obviously, it gets pretty complicated, so I put down the phone and watch TV instead. Maybe I should join a book club or something? Or forever cherish the memory of having friends back when I was seventeen.