2006-10-23
written @ 12:56 a.m.

Decompressing Unravels

Considering my last update was one year, three days ago, I suppose it's close enough to an anniversary for it to be appropriate for me to revisit this place again. There must be something about October.

I don't know where to begin. Despite my prolonged absence I am unexpectedly comfortable; there is a sense of picking up where I left off in some ways. I'm speaking of both this diary and the sensation of being home from college. I came back for the weekend for my mom's suprise 50th birthday party. Considering i haven't been home since the first two weeks of summer about 4 or 5 months ago, I was unsure how it would feel.

My experiences of coming home have been peculiar. I feel a sort of two-world presence, existing both here and at school. I used to feel like I had compartmentalized each, that I had a Dallas life and a Washington life, Dallas people and DC people. Somewhere though, my boundaries collapsed and everything flooded into each other. I am forced to accept that I cannot simply alternate; I am called to live in both worlds at once.

So as I'm here in my old room, sitting in my old chair and staring at my familiarly bare walls, I am simultaneously taking care of business in DC, doing homework, answering e-mails, calling people. I do not have the power to tag certain activities to certain environments, I have to integrate it all without feeling lost.

I know I'm not saying things as well as I want to. I have yet to find my groove here, perhaps due in part to some rustiness. Let me find a new starting place.

Identity-forming is difficult. The physical reality of moving away from home served as a quick test of who I was when I stand alone, when I'm plucked from the comfortable anonymity of home.

So much came at me so fast, and I did what I normally do: I managed it. I took it all in stride, quickly adapted, found my place, and asserted myself again. College was a quick fit for me and I've found so many opportunities to involve myself in activities and organizations I care about. I am constantly building and progressing I feel like.

But that all was so automatic, and the nature of it being "business," I feel like I have lacked the necessary decompression time. I am only now really trying to figure out what it all means.

Being home, of course, only amplifies that question. Suddenly taken out of the new system I have created, I have to explain and justify it to my old system. People are genuinely interested in how I'm doing and what I'm doing. When they talk to me, I can see the way I represent something larger to them. I'm headed something ambitious and grander than the average career expectancy around here. Everyone makes the customary joke about how I'll be President or whatever. Apparently, studying anything close to politics in DC means you'll be the head of state. How can I explain to people that it's nothing spectacular. That I'm just being me, meeting people, joining groups, getting out and about, going to class occasionally. From far away, there's all this prestige about going to a place like Georgetown. When you talk about all the opportunities it offers and the quality of the programs and etc. But when I'm there, I just see regular kids in college, doing the regular college thing. I haven't been transformed into some precocious politician all the sudden.

Where am I going with this again? Identity?

I spent a lot of time alone this summer. Living alone and working alot left me less time for hanging out and conversation. It was me doing my thing. And yet I still don't feel like I got to analyze things enough. I don't feel like I ever have enough time to think anymore. I run around because I have to but I'm having a harder time answering the question why.

I suppose the issue I've been skirting here is that I don't feel like I have someone to share things with.

I have some great friends, friends who are great listeners too and will come and chat if I give them a call. But that's more of a response to a particulary strong need, kind of a band-aid to what I feel like I'm looking for sometimes. I really enjoy having one person who I go to regularly, who I talk to so much that they know everything that's going on and can ask me about any of it. I just as much being engrossed in their life, keeping up with their stories and problems. Whenever something of importance happens to me, my first instinct is to to break it down and think about it and then share how it affects me and get feedback. I really appreciate that kind of intimacy.

But much like me, everyone in DC seems so busy. It's ridiculous how hard it is to even find people to go to dinner with . Just to stop in the cafeteria for half an hour, you have to call 5 different people and have them check their schedules and see if they have class or meetings, or are in the library all night. No one seems to have any time to just hang out. Weekdays are for working and weekends are for hard partying to distract from the weekdays. What happened to just having a long dinner, watching a movie in the room, going for a walk or even reading a non-assigned book. I'm just as much an offender here. I probably have less time than most because of all my commitments. Any free time I have is necessarily spent on homework, as its most often slighted in a crunch.

I need to find a way to change this. I don't necessarily feel overstressed. I feel like everything I do is important and addresses a different part of me, but I also feel like there has to be an alternative here.

I feel like there's a way to combine this all. I know there's a balance in there. I like to think that if I could find someone to do this with me I'd feel much better about it. The question is if that's realistic, or if it's dumping one persons busy junk on someone whose got enough of their own going on.

I don't know yet. I really need to spend time with this. The fact that I can't even identify the issue has me slightly worried. I'm such a problem-solver type that I get frustrated if I can't figure out something to do.

There's some anxiety here. There's some tension and frustration. I want to slow it down. I want to let it go. Because until I can do that I don't know if I'll have made any progress on this "who am I" issues.