Tuesday, August 27, 2013

boo

Breaking a very long hiatus to spiel about a few things, or really just bleed on white with words. This past summer has been a veritable roller coaster, nay, this entire year. 

I learned in spring that my most perfect person lives in Canada, something I had suspected for two years but could not confirm without a visit during break. I found that staying away from alcohol vastly improved my academic performance, which is not so surprising, but is an incredibly good thing to know about oneself. I earned straight As and taught elementary-schoolers about gardening and watched little blossoms turn into great big blooms. 

Once summer started, I also had to say goodbye to my love, if only for two weeks, and I brought my belongings back home and continued the search that had started in winter for an internship in DC. It is a very stressful thing, looking for an internship in fields you aren't sure will be of interest, knowing you will not receive pay, all the while failing at several phone interviews. I know there is much to be learned in failure, but it does not make the actual fact any easier to understand or cope with.

I arrived in the capital of Canada on Canada Day, and my trip there was a mix of feelings. I learned, a lot, very much, about Canadian history, about life in Canada, about my beau. But I was also, still, met with the task of finding my internship, a day-in, day-out search that consumed me from July 1st-31st, dampening the joy I felt in being in a new place and leading to bouts of anxiety that, were I with anyone less understanding, caring, sweet, would have surely monopolized the state of my relationship. Once this was over, I calmed down a bit, but I still find myself in the throes of financial stress, the curious feeling of knowing I may not have enough money to live on soon, for a very long time. I scrimped and saved baby-sitting and barista money from the time I was fourteen, but I also spent it on exactly what I wanted to spend it on, traveling, so it is not so much lost as it is that I simply need to find a way to make some more money back. I left Canada on August 23rd and it still feels strange not to sleep in a bed with a beautiful boy breathing beside me. 

This year feels not only strange and stilted in the sheer amount of time I spent looking for an internship, time wasted but not really, I suppose, because, after all, I do finally have one, but I find that I have drifted away from whatever sense of self I have maybe cultivated over the years, and I find that I have also drifted away from people I would like to have held closer. The few that I love, I am loyal to, but I do not do so well in the department of communication, perhaps. I miss very many people, one in particular. But I do not know how to reconnect, how to go from 60 mph to 0 to 60 back again. These are particularly lacking metaphors, I realize, but really, I don't know. I don't know what I don't know. I just know that I am in a state of missing, and I don't hold things tight enough so they fall out of my grasp. And there are so many good things, both that I have and that I have loved. I am rambling, as if in a journal, and just like a journal, I don't know where or how to end things. I just feel sad that I have lost important friendships, that friendship maintenance eludes me, that I fail to connect on a daily basis with more than one person. But maybe this is life. Maybe we are not meant to constantly communicate. Maybe one day I will catch up, without the worry of whether I have done wrong by first failing to keep in touch. Interpersonal relationships are difficult, and I feel isolated, even though I know I am not alone. I don't want to waste time, or life. I want my life to be more than screens and sadness. But I feel stagnant and stuck and don't know how to change that without graduation, without money, without a car. I want to jump in a car and drive and drive and drive. Feel my soul re-enter my chest through the window-framed view of the California landscape. 

I know there are better things coming, but for the day, it is hard. It is hard but I will continue and make it. I will be happy someday, or at least have the quiet life and the sweet garden I crave, and the people and cats with whom to share it. 

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