Emotions

My goodness what a week it's been.  It feels like a month ago that I flew from Denver to Washington, DC for what I thought was to be a simple orientation.  How surprised I am to find myself 3 days later on a plane back, feeling as disoriented and overwhelmed as if I just came out of a tornado.  Turned around and upside down, although I'm now upright and back on my feet I'm feeling disheveled, unkempt, hazy, and wandering aimlessly.  I'm sure part of that is from the stress of an airport mishap, but alas I feel as though I should start at the beginning.  Forgive me for the lengthiness of this post, but as I said - a lot has happened.

I left Denver on Wednesday morning for what I expected to be a simple and somewhat mundane orientation for school.  Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled to be starting school again, especially in Washington, but I do in fact feel quite prepared, and I went to orientation simply because it was required, not because I really truly felt the need to get myself… well, get myself oriented.  I left Denver feeling quite comfortable about moving to a city where I know just one person (my uncle, who happens to live right outside DC), getting myself around on the Metro, readjusting to school life, making new acquaintances - I feel as though throwing myself into new situations is something I do often, and I'm comfortable with the uncomfortable-ness of it.  The flight in was easy, I found my way around the Metro from the airport to school no problem, got checked in, got my room (and, delightfully, my roommate, who would prove to be a valuable and enjoyable companion for the remainder of the trip), and all set to venture out for dinner with a group of students to simply get to know each other.  Everyone at dinner was new to the city, new to the school, and we all got along well.  We laughed, hung out at a delicious restaurant, walked to get some fro-yo (delicious!) and despite the 80% humidity (which is going to take a LOT of getting used to, and a lot of patience for dealing with my ridiculously thick and curly hair), we enjoyed walking back to campus and talking along the way.  Everyone was a bit tired from their journey - I actually met another girl from Colorado who went to Arapahoe, and a girl from Colorado Spring, so I was not the only one who had been up all day traveling, but we enjoyed each others company to the extent that a group of strangers who are thrown together can.  We arrived back on campus, hung out for a bit, and then went to bed fairly early to prepare for Thursday, when the real orientation would start.  Day one:  Comfortable and Confident.

Thursday morning we woke up, my roommate (Tea) and I got ready (neither of us are particularly preoccupied with out appearance, so it only took us 30 or so minutes to get ready and get over to the dining hall for breakfast).  She and I found ourselves getting along quite nicely, and although we were in different orientation groups, we spent much of our free time together.  Neither of us had parents at the orientation; she's from Chicago.  Most of day one was spent in an auditorium listening to presentations about things I'd already heard - communication is key for getting along with your roommate, you're more responsible for your education, nobody is going to chase you down and get you to do your homework, don't forget to check your email, here's all the ways you can get involved, blah blah blah.  I know that many people come from many different schools and some people may not have heard all this information before, but having come from a large high school where more than 90% of the graduates go straight to a 4-year university, I've pretty much heard it all before.  And despite being bored out of my mind, it was exhausting.  Sitting in the same room all day, listening to people talk and talk and talk at you, trying to sort pertinent information from non-pertinent information, and trying to remember countless names and faces and where people are from and who I've told what about myself and what they've told me about themselves - honestly it was all quite exhausting.  Good, exciting, and happy.  But exhausting at the same time.
What I discovered on Thursday (it's something I'm still trying to wrap my brain around…) is that this past year has forced me (and uncomfortably so) to be comfortable with myself being alone.  High school was about ignoring my real self and trying to find someone else, somebody who I liked better.  All along I knew who the real me was, somehow I've always known, but in high school I ignored it, buried it so deep inside layers and layers of lies and ignored realities and hurt and anger and confusion that I couldn't find it.  It took all my friends leaving the area, some new people to enter my life and some old friends to leave it for me to start digging through those layers and layers of deceit.  I spent a year living on my own - not just out of my parents house and on my own (mostly) financially, but really truly alone for me to uncover everything.  It was painful.  It sucked.  It was hard.  There were lots of sleepless nights, lots of restless nights, lots of nights trying desperately not to fall back into old habits, ridiculous indulgences that I tried to cover the pain, but in the end everything was dealt with.  Everything was exposed, uncovered, revealed and understood.  And that took being alone, truly and utterly alone, for me to get to that point.  And now that I'm completely comfortable with myself, I can be alone, I can be quiet, and I can be comfortable.  It's and odd and sincerely disconcerting experience, because it's not something that I've ever experienced before.  I cannot explain how odd it is to consider yourself an extrovert (and not just a mild extrovert, but someone who craves people and interaction and relationships and discussion and dialogue to an extreme), and find yourself completely comfortable being alone.  In some ways I feel like a stranger to myself because I am still rediscovering this person that is myself, this new and comfortable and insecure and confident and passionate and broken person that I am, and yet somehow I DO know this person, this seeming stranger and yet somehow it's like looking in a mirror for the first time and truly seeing who I am.  This is new to me.  I suppose it's a good thing, but still, it's not something I realized had happened until 2 days ago. And great re-evaluations about yourself always carry some amount of confusion, adjustment, and strangeness.  Day 2:  Dazed, Befuddled, and Excited for a new chapter.

Friday was less crazy on the informational side - after discovering how bad I (and a newfound friend, Ezekiel) are at Wii games, thinking hard about myself, my new situation, and all the variables that go with moving to a new city 3,000 miles away from the place I've called home for so long, bed and sleep was both a welcome respite and an unneeded distraction.  But, eventually exhaustion won over and I did sleep for a solid 5 or 6 hours.  On Friday, we had less presentations to listen to and a little bit more free time, and more individualized attention.  I met with my academic advisor to discuss scheduling, sports, credits, various requirements, and other logistical things, and found myself thinking hard about solidifying a plan for school.  It was a very interesting and perplexing paradox of messages I got from Fridays schedule - one side said that I always needed to be thinking and planning ahead, calculating what classes I needed to take and what I wanted to do and look for internships and jobs and start thinking careers… The other side said that I should take my time, that I didn't have to make a decision right away, that I should explore and take classes that interest me and do things like play and study art and soccer and go to parties and make new friends.  Very very perplexing.  And I find myself surrounded by ambitious, intelligent, passionate people, many of whom know exactly what they want to do - they've got the next ten years of their life planned out on a timetable.  And with that comes my wondering… why?  Can't I be here for the simple value of the experience, something to add to my repertoire of experiences and conclusions and relationships and decisions that define and shape who I am and what my place is in this world?  It's an expensive way to get there, yes, but it's the path I've chosen.  I appreciate the assumption that I will be able to graduate in 4 years, but what if I choose not to?  What happens then?  Am I less of a student for it?  Less ambitious?  I want this experience to be one that refines my soul and my being, creating me into exactly the person that God has intended for me.  That, truly, is my only pursuit in life.  Everything is a derivative of that simple goal.  And so I hope to enter this new experience, this new city and place with the expectation that what is, is, and what will be is simply there because.  That's the only reason I need, and that's the only goal I have.  Take it or leave it.  Day 3 part 1:  Determined, Stubborn, and Conflicted.
Friday afternoon I travelled on the Metro back to the airport.  A bunch of girls from Jersey/New York were headed in the same direction as me to catch a train back home, so we rode the metro together, and I found myself enjoying the company of people that I'd never met before that particular moment.  I love that in this community, people can meet each other and instantly be friends simply because of circumstance.  Beautiful.  I arrived at the airport a bit early, so I got some food, sat at a booth with an outlet, plugged in my computer, and relaxed to comfortably watch some tv before boarding my flight.  Long story short:  After hearing that the Chicago airport was closed (I had a layover there to get home), talking to ticketing, much miscommunication, hooking up with my roommate to have some company, and getting myself situated with a few plausible backup plans, I find myself stuck at the Washington Airport for 5 extra hours. Bummer. Finally the long delayed plane arrives in Chicago.  Although the original plan was to make my connection, which had also been delayed, a mechanical problem on the ground in Washington set us back further than expected, and I found myself stranded in Chicago for the night.  Magnificent.  Thankfully, my mom (who I informed of the situation back in Washington), had spent the time I was in the air trying to find me a hotel for the night.  When I landed, sure enough, all the hotels near the airport were full, but my mom's overprotectiveness and diligence paid off - she found me a cheap taxi company, a room about 15 minutes outside downtown Chicago, and reserved me a room.  Fanastic.  There were no problems getting to the hotel, falling asleep (by the time I got to that point it was almost 3am), getting checked out or getting back to the airport.  And Chicago, now sunny and fair, is getting flights in and out smoothly.  Perfect.  Day 3 part 2:  Stressed, Bored, and Exhausted.
Interestingly enough, I found myself completely comfortable thrown into that unexpected situation.  I've flown alone before, plenty of times, and I am completely comfortable alone finding my way around and handling myself.  But having to change flights, get a hotel, and being stranded in a city I've never been to before were all new experiences.  And yet oddly, I never found myself uncomfortable or afraid.  I was actually particularly annoyed by my mother's overprotectiveness and her initiative at taking care of all the logistics in Chicago for me - my fierce and unrelenting need to be independent is something that doesn't ever go away, and more than anything I hate being coddled.  Until I remembered a couple things 1) her working out all the details while I was in the air meant that I didn't have to do it on the ground, and I got more sleep.  And, 2) I had to remind myself that it's not because she doesn't believe that I can't do it myself, she's just trying to be helpful, and to take care of things for me.  She would've done the same for my father, or for her sister - she knows that I am capable, she was simply trying to help.  And I still have trouble asking for help - I think it may be something that I struggle with all my life.  It's who I am, how I was raised, and something that is incredibly difficult for me to let go of.  I am not good at asking for help when I need it, or even accepting help when given freely, needed or not.  Day 3 part 3:  Frustrated, Relieved, Thankful, Annoyed, and Self-Conscious.

At the airport today I decided that I love airports (I sort of always have).  Although they are a sign of wealth and occasionally extravagance, they are also a symbol of opportunity, of cultures meeting, of very very different people from all parts of the world mingling, a reminder of how big the world truly is, and yet of how small it can seem.  A delightful paradox of so much that, to an extent personifies human nature.  I love the ride - the taking off and feeling like you are being rooted to your seat, the earth pulling you back and the sky beckoning upward.  Defying gravity and seemingly the laws of nature, of watching your shadow get smaller, the people get smaller, feeling contained and yet unleashed.  You get to watch people and cars get smaller and smaller, although it's so gradual that you don't entirely realize the magnitude of your height.  Suddenly a cloud will pass underneath you and you realize how high you are.  Then you hit some turbulence and you are delicately reminded of how fragile your state actually is.  Looking out the window you can see the random geometric grid pattern of fields and harvests come and gone, the crazy suburbia homes with their prefect cul-de-sacs and the backyard pools, and the exploding cities that seem so full.  The flying, the noise, the bumps, the smell, the cramped-ness of the bathrooms, the people talking, the people sleeping, babies crying, couples holding hands, siblings sharing a magazine, the overly friendly people and the not so friendly people.  The slightly absurd plastic cups, and the SkyMall magazine that sells overpriced and impractical, albeit creative inventions. It's a strange place to find a collection of so much that contains who we are, and yet it is as the same time exciting and exhilarating, a nearly complete containment of who we are and what it is we value most.  Day 4:  Peaceful, Pensive, and Content.

:)