Sunday, October 12, 2014

hey.


I've been kinda MIA around here. I feel like this is the point where I'm supposed to say I'm sorry, but I'm not, not really. I just haven't had much to write about. Life is pretty... ordinary.

Now, before you exclaim, how depressing! and, you should be happy and loving everything! I want to tell you that I am! I really love college. I love the freedom I have. I love being independent. I miss my family terribly, I miss my best friends and my crossfit peeps and my favorite teachers so much it makes my heart ache, but I really am so happy. I'm truly living my dream. A dream with more homework and tears and less sleep and glamour than I expected, but a dream nonetheless. And I don't really know what on earth I'm writing about I just know that I want to write. That I need to write. One of my biggest fears is that I'll end up 70 years from now wondering what life was like as a high schooler, as a teenager, as a college student, as a newlywed, as a mom, and whatever else I become in my life. I'm terrified of forgetting. I feel this great need to write everything, every mundane detail and random half-poetic thought. I need to write it all down because maybe one day it will be important. It's the writer in me and I can't help it.

I want to write everything. What I did and what I thought and how I felt and who I talked to and everything. But I can't. Actually, I can, but I shouldn't. So I'll satisfy myself with a few things about life lately that I've found myself giving extra time too. First off, let's start with these Utah sunsets. They are absolutely killer. Every night around 7 o clock the sky decides to take every beautiful thought and give it a color and then paint the clouds with them. It's phenomenal. Not only does the sky change colors, but the mountains turn this dusky pinky orangey red and my heart just swoons. They're beautiful. Speaking of the mountains, the trees on the mountains have changed color and I have to have to find a way to get up there and hike. Because I need some fall leaves in my life. And the perfectly manicured green lawns of a college campus are not going to cut it.

Sometimes I find myself laughing at things I do that I find so quintessentially college. Like eating cereal in my dorm room at any given hour of the day or night. Going to study groups. Not getting like any sleep at all ever. Ditching every responsibility at the drop of a hat when someone suggests a hike or a swig run or watching a movie. Procrastinating way more than I should. It's necessary procrastination, a vital part of the creative process if you ask me. But it exists nonetheless and nothing I tell myself will change the fact that it's bad. I also find myself laughing at myself for how much I enjoy things. I have a huge grin every night after crossfit as I'm coasting on my little blue schwinn and the breeze is whipping past and the sun is setting and I have all of those happy happy exercise endorphins pumping through me and I just smile because I just really love bikes and riding them and Suze is just the most perfect cycling companion. Also, I went into a grocery store this week. Like a real life one. An actual grocery store. Do y'all realize how much I love grocery stores? How much I've missed them? I didn't realize either, until I stepped inside. And it wasn't any big fancy Publix or even a dumpy Ingles, but it was a grocery store. With a bakery and saran wrapped meat and a produce section with greens on the wall under sprinklers that make a thunder noise before they rain. And then the Beatles' song "Here Comes the Sun" came on and I didn't even bother smothering the big goofy grin that was on my face on the way home from the combination of an actual grocery store and riding my bike home. I was an absolutely giddy fool.

I know you are so tired of hearing this, but I am still in complete shock that this is my life now. And I can't keep all of these thoughts straight- what I've written here versus what I meant to write here versus the stuff I talk to my mom and best friend about- so I may or may not be repeating the following observations. The weirdest things remind me of the strangeness of this situation. Every once in a reading the word college makes me start as I realize, hey, I'm in college! And then I think about how I've been planning for this for the past 18 years of my life and it's just one of those whoa moments where you suddenly feel so very small and the world feels so very big. Or sometimes I'll look around campus and see all of the other people and realize, we're all living on our own. We all go home to our own apartments, to roommates and too much laundry and not enough healthy food. We're all on our own. And that makes the world seem a lot smaller again. Like you belong here with these people you've never met. You're connected. And suddenly you realize that everyone, every adult in this world, is on their own, away from their parents. Sure, there are people who are married and have kids or live with other people but really, we are on our own. We are the boss of ourselves now. We decide what's for dinner and when we go to bed and what show we watch on Netflix that night. If I want to go on a road trip with friends, I could, in theory. I would need a car and money and a plan, but technically, I could go. I'm looking at summer internships in a big city somewhere. I have a job. I run the BYU English Society instagram. I'm looking around for other small writing jobs and internships around campus. I'm in college.

Whoa.

Sincerely, mad

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