The past couple of months have been some of the hardest of my life. I can't complain too much because I'm surrounded by amazing family and friends who have loved and supported me, cheered me up when I was down, and given me dozens of fun memories. I go to an amazing school in the city I love the most and even though they just turned the fountain off (my favorite part of campus), they're about to put all the pretty Christmas lights around the light poles. It's cold out now which means I can wear (and buy new) sweaters and drink peppermint mochas from Starbucks. Next week I go home for Thanksgiving, and two weeks after that is Christmas break. So, everything is fine really, it's just that sometimes I don't feel fine.
Like last weekend. Last weekend I went to visit my grandma in Queens, which was nice, but for some reason I just felt super anxious. I was itching to get away from school for the weekend and the normal distractions of Rusty (her dog) and Tom (my "grandpa") were very much welcome, along with the endless brownies, cookies, and chicken cutlets she sent me back to school with. Still, I couldn't help feeling strange. That happens sometimes when I'm around my family and I don't have the normal distractions of school work and my crazy friends to keep me company.
The thing is, I've been going through a lot of changes in my life. Someone I was banking on being there for a while is no longer here and that's something that hurts every day. Even though it was a choice I made and a choice I know is best for both of us, it doesn't make it any less painful. It's the kind of pain that you expect to go away with time, and to a degree it has, but to another degree it is a hole that I know will always be there.
I'm someone who puts a lot of stock in my inner instincts, and it doesn't make sense that they led me somewhere I didn't think I would be. It's hard when you trust something that feels so right and makes so much sense and then not have that thing work out in the end. It's hard to trust others after that and even harder to trust yourself. The worst part is that I don't really understand why we can't all have what we want, why things don't work out in the way we want them too. For awhile I've been content in trusting that God knew what He was doing, and I bet he still does, but blind faith becomes harder and harder the more you open your eyes to everything.
I also don't know what I'm going to do with my life. I'm running out of core curriculum classes to take which means that I have to start deciding on a major so that I can take classes in that major. I've considered about 70 different careers in the past couple of years and that was all fine, because it was years before I had to decide my major. Now I've got about three months. Again, I always figured that when the time came, God would put in my mind what I should be doing with my life. Yet here I am and I haven't landed on any of those 70 careers a significant amount of times for me to decide on one. I wish I could go to my advisor or Career Services and have the tell me what to do, but the truth is that it's something I have to figure out on my own.
Everyday, too, I wonder whether I'm doing enough. Do I have enough friends? Am I involved enough? How is my resumé coming along? After intramural soccer ended I had to take an inventory of all the things I was a part of, and came up a little short. Even though these weren't really things to be worried about (I have a close-knit group of friends and am probably too busy to take on another commitment), I still find myself scrutinizing and comparing, as if someone on the outside is watching me and taking stock of the same things I am questioning myself about.
I guess I just feel sometimes like I'm floating in space, and the only one who can really get me down is me. When I feel like this, all I want is a big hug from my mom, but I haven't been home for over six weeks. I call her and always feel better, but my family and my home are part of my identity. When I don't have them here next to me, it becomes harder to know who I am and to fully grow into that.
Every time I tell my mom all this she says that I'm being dramatic, and I probably am. Because if I wasn't lost right now, would I really be on the right path? If I wasn't questioning everything, what could I be certain of? I've come to terms with the fact that life is kind of just people floating around like little specks of dust. The way I picture it is like in Horton Hears a Who, where we all have our own little worlds and we're just sitting on top of a flower or wherever else the wind brings us. I'll try to enjoy the view from the flower I'm on right now.
