So my week home was more then I ever could have imagined. Minus the absence of my two favorite family members ( I miss my cats) I had a great time. There is something about going home that is quite deceptive. After living without basic necessities and the comforts of heat, a bed and cable television being home was like staying at the Ritz-Carlton or something.
It was sunny throughout the week, I ate a lot, I played the Nintendo Wii for hours, and I got to hang out with my family. Everything in my small little town was exactly the same yet distinctively different. It is my home yet it isn't my home anymore. The shops are still confound to restaurants and speciality stores, except now there is a dunkin' donuts a few blocks away. The people are still homely and considerate while they hold doors for women and children and talk about impending weddings and births.
The whole time I was home, I regretted having to leave on Sunday. I kept making excuses to stay. I'm not finding anything in good old New York and it's been 3 months (bordering on four) and all I have to show for my move up here is a crappy bookstore job. I don't get much writing down (evident by my lack of blog posting and general lack of story writing or even the inspiration to write). I am not miserable but sometimes I feel tired. Tired of trying to 'be' somebody. I feel tired of having to prove myself. I don't feel like I am or will be taken seriously in this field even though I haven't really emerged myself in it fully.
I have anxiety about my future. I no longer believe that I will be a bookstore girl my whole entire life but there is still a fear that lingers somewhere deep inside that I can't verbalize. Marie calls me all the time to talk about her loneliness. She is not dealing with post college life well. Though she has a career that pays a generous salary she has made no friends (besides the boy she likes). It worries her, and it is the only thing she wants to talk about these days.
Maybe because I am slightly a loner and am use to my fair share of days alone, but I don't really know how to connect to her claim. When Abagail confided in me last week about her bouts of depression and her own lonely ways I could relate to her. She talked about the sort of lonely that is about wanting general connections to people other than for entertainment and something to do on a Saturday Night. It is loneliness that causes you to question your own self worth and importance to others and to yourself. Marie seems more upset that she can't go out eating or drinking because she has no one to hang out with.
At the end of the day I am not worried about the social aspects of my life. I am doing okay at least that is what I keep telling myself. Maybe I am not aware of any loneliness because I am so consumed with getting a new job, writing, or even just finding a damn internship. It is the career aspect of my life that is consuming me. I not only want to be more than a bookstore girl but I need to be something more and I don't know how to make the changes to do so.
When I was home, safe in my big bed where everything was exactly the same and comforting, I could feel it trying to lure me back. "It" being my indecisiveness, my worries, my apprehensions and concerns. "It"being the part of me that doesn't want to take chances and would rather settle for okay that spectacular. The part of me the believes my better best just isn't good enough and that my dreams are just that. All the components of "it" lit up my old life like it was amazing. It turned the boredom of small town living into an oasis from city life. "It" made the four blank walls of my bedroom into a creative outlet where I spent my mornings actually writing. "It" made me forget all of the things about small town living that i hate, creating this big facade that I a was caught up in. That I am still today caught up in.
Where it not for the responsibilities of my job, I don't think I would have come back. "It" has made me slightly delusional. Despite the endless opportunities here, I am in a weird breaking point that has more to do with being tired than anything else. I am hoping to hear about this new internship in the next few days. Because of the holiday week, she gave phone interview in anticipation for people traveling for the holidays. The interview went well. I know I have said that about every interview but this one went how I wanted it to go. I felt like I had a good answer for all the questions she posed and I got to ask some of my own. Her biggest concern revolved around me being a college graduate. She feared that I would find my entry level job during the internship and then they would be without an intern. It is a big concern but I explained to her that I can't really get a job without having an internship anyway, or at least that has been my experience these last few months.
I am scared to think that if nothing should come up soon 'It' will lure me back home, not because I want to go but because can't I bear staying. I have a lot to process.
My application for grad school isn't due until April 30th. Thank God. I have some time to come up with a great story and submit it to the admission committee. I have several stories in my head but I want to spend my time on just one instead of trying to complete three at the same time. I did visit my old and potential grad school last Monday. I finally got a college sweater and have been wearing it all week for comfort and warmth (It snowed a little yesterday!). I miss school a lot, I miss being in class, I miss harassing hot English professors, and I miss having potential. I especially miss the last one the most.
1 comment:
Forgive me for being trite, but you are young and have a future that will unspool at an alarming rate. Seemingly slow at first, it will accelerate without input from you. You need to have an idea of a general direction to point your nose at. (dont be surprised at the twists and hairpin turns your path takes. Forty years from now, you may find yourself owning "Auntie Emm's Screen Door Company" and be as rich as a cake.)
You may get into publishing in the Marketing Department. You may end up running a magazine. You may be a NYTimes Best Seller.
or maybe a writer of Vampire/Romance Novels!
Point being, if Writing grabs you by the shoulders and shakes you, picks you, becomes more important to you than money, fame or cookies, then you wiill write. You will pursue higher education and you will write. You will labor at jobs you hate and write. You will find and lose lovers and soulmates, lunatics and mad genius and write. Write to yourself and for yourself. Be fearless and never censor yourself. To write is to open the veins and break the bones of your self. The self that lies within, the self that scares you and secretly thrills you with the knowledge you have already. Write, Dear girl. Above all, write.
Bob
Post a Comment