Looking back on life
I’m at a transition state right now. I’m between college, and work (hopefully; even if not, I’m between undergrad and grad, which is still significant). This is the kind of time when I reflect on life, and that’s what I’m doing right now. Since it’s preventing me from sleeping, you get to hear about it too.
This is not a new thing for me, not at all. I have a very clear memory of lying half-awake in my old bed at my old house, sometime when I was fairly young (still in Franklin). I was at the point where dreams and reality are difficult to distinguish, and thinking, “What if the past three years have just been some really weird dream? What if I wake up tomorrow to find I’m still in third grade, not sixth?” (I have a memory of having a memory of having similar thoughts three years prior, probably about kindergarten or something).
The day before I first moved to IIT was kind of like that, too. I was working, and busy all day – the marina I worked at was having their open house, and it was probably the biggest party I’ve ever been to. Sometime near (slightly after?) midnight, I was handed a wad of cash, equipped with a brand-new marina baseball-style cap, and sent on my way home. On the way, I realized I had no place – I was no longer a high schooler, no longer a “I-just-got-out-of-high-school-now-I’m-working-for-the-summer”-er; but I wasn’t a college student yet, either; for that dark, lonely drive home, I was stuck in-between.
And now, it’s kind of the same. Only I didn’t have a job this summer, and I’m not going back to school. I’ve had a few months to, mostly, think about things. I’ve watched some of my friends get Real World Jobs; and it’s not like they’ve instantly morphed into Adults, which makes it seem even weirder. In the meantime, I’m at home, still trying to become One Of Them, unprepared for the massive, irreversible changes that, real or not, I believe I’ll have to go through. I hope this isn’t throwing my game off; it’d explain why I’ve done so poorly at interviews, I guess.
Hmm. So. Passage of time. You can’t go back. I remember my graduation, and my last exam, and the last freshman class; my first date, first kiss, first dumping; and before that, my first college classes, the first time I owned my own computer, using non-dialup-internet with NO WIRES EITHER! that first day, writing ‘cout << "Hello, world!" << endl;' and compiling, and seeing it show up. And marching band, the fateful suspension-provoking solo; the Jambo, my first summer camp, my first by-myself-with-no-parents camping trip; later, my brother's early camping trips (I could've been a better brother). All that, all of it is what's going through my head right now. And I want to go back, even to the worst of it, to live it again.
And I can't.
Time doesn't work that way. (Niagra falls, the first set-up of the new Elephant Ears booth). It only goes one way, you only have memories, maybe pictures. (Gold mine in South Dakota, caves in Tennessee, Lincoln's tomb).
meh
I think I need a new hobby. My blogging is starting to get really whiny.
