twenty/three
August 06, 2003 @ 12:22 a.m.
After calculating my schoolbook expenditure ($462 if all bright spanking new) and conglomeration (17 in all: includes the Bible, seven books for one class and six for another), I'm beginning to wonder if this isn't a mistake.
Too late to change colleges, but that isn't what I meant. I meant college at all.
Maybe everyone begins to doubt why they continued their education when they've come as far as I have. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe most just know it's right.
But those "most" normally know what they want to do with themselves. I haven't the faintest idea.
I suppose getting my Master's in library science is what I'll do...or end it at my bachelor's in English, with an emphasis in literature (or something). I know I don't really care much either way, and that's no way to get into a Master's program.
I don't care about myself physically or emotionally. Why on Earth would I start caring about what happened to me career-wise?
But. Yes. Loans to pay off, money money money to worry about. I worry about money most often, because I know I will never have enough of it. "Enough" meaning being able to take care of myself. Being comfortable. Paying off my bills and not eating Ramen noodles for the rest of my life.
With my birthday coming up, I'm becoming especially attentive to all the little details of my life. I always make a wish on my birthday, hoping for a better year than the one before. I always think, "Oh this will be the year that I lose all the weight, that I smile more, that I get a boyfriend and lose this pesky virginity."
And every year, it never happens. Every year I gain some weight, I smile less, and still the virginity stays.
It happens every year.
More and more I find myself asking, "What if I don't celebrate a next year? What would August 8th be like then?" I always ask it in an unattached way. It's like speaking of the weather now, that's how often I discuss it in my head. It's never an option, just a question. Just a what-if.
And perhaps it's just my period talking, but suddenly I ache very badly, and suddenly my eyes water at the sound of familiar songs. Suddenly I remember Fort Wayne, and what my nine months there were, and what I have now.
It will never be the same. Good or bad be damned, it will never be the same here in Iowa. I made more friends in Indiana, sobbed more, smiled more. I felt there.
Nothing can make me feel here. That sounds terrible, because here there are my family and my best friend and it's just not their fault that they're not enough.
I'm not scared. I've done the new campus thing before. That isn't what I'm dreading, nor is it the roommate, nor the commute back and forth from Cedar Falls to Cedar Rapids. It's the couples on campus, the boyfriends my roommate is sure to have, the stumbling-in upon something, the holding hands, the little kisses.
I want that and I don't. Because I want someone and I don't.
I keep thinking I'm ready to feel something for someone but I'm not. The more time I spend numb, the more time I realize that feeling is temporary and easy to rid of -- it's the numbness that's most difficult to pull away from. I'm ready for someone and I. am. not.
I have everything to offer and yet my plate is empty. My baggage claim is overflowing, and I'm running away from him, the wrong direction.
I know exactly what I want. (I couldn't possibly.) I know all the right advice to give but could never take it, much less put it to good use.
There's a boy out there for me, I know there has to be. (There is, right?) He's one with some but not lots of experience in just about everything. His smile is the answer. His eyes tell me secrets. He sings me sillysweet songs. He, I don't know, actually likes me.
Now I just sound like a romantic shmuck.
He can pay the bills. He wears jeans and dress pants with the same nonchalance. He knows what I am capable of and reminds me of it when I forget. He calls my mother "Mrs. Roedema."
I guess. I guess.
I guess it will never happen.
I'll be twenty in three days. I have never been so confused.
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- - March 22, 2010
always the same - July 01, 2008
b-a-n-a-n-a-s! - December 25, 2006
elementary again - October 29, 2006
I don't like you, but I love you - October 03, 2006