|
|
3:22 p.m. - 2001-08-22 Having not even started my senior year yet, I was suddenly hit by the slamming realization that I was going to be living on my own next year. It knocked me down, as if I hadn't been thinking about it the entire time I visited colleges, wrote out applications, and took my SATs and ACTs. Obviously, I was going to college; I knew that, even actively. I just didn't think about it as being any different than it is now. I live with my dad, who acts more like a roommate than a father. He's out almost more than I am, with random women, watching random concerts, doing random things I prefer not to think about. He leaves a note when he's going somewhere, and I leave a note when I'm going somewhere. Neither of us can cook, so we stock up on frozen dinners. We argue over the computer and the music we play, and the messy/disastrous state of the car he never drives, but still claims as his. Every once in awhile we sit down and hang out. I do the grocery shopping, he does the laundry. I think about this, and think about college, and realistically, there won't be much of a difference. But I still have cold feet. A year early. On another note, I'm looking forward to the reinvention. I don't live in an especially small town.. 75,000, approximately....but everybody has some sort of preconception about me, and if they don't, and I challenge the widespread preconception, they'll come into contact with someone who does. I can't go out into town and switch.. well.. blatantly switch personalities without someone getting wind of it and knowing I'm faking. At college, I'm born again into, or closer to, the fantasy self, provided I can keep it up. My reputation for frequent freak-outs in inescapable situations is gone. Maybe I just have them because so many people expect me to. My longing to be seen as laid-back, rather than tense, because of said freak outs, could possibly happen. I want to flow through life, not fight it. Trying to reinvent isn't really fighting fate; it's shaping it. I don't believe in a passive fate anyway... I believe in, if at all, a fate that you decide by who you make yourself. I don't understand people who can define themselves in a few words, and then define themselves in the same words years, or even months, later. I tried that the beginning of junior year, for some sort of 'getting to know you' project for Human Behavior. If I can remember right, it was 'honest, unique, empathetic, blunt.' Just a year ago. August 2001, you can quote me on this right now, and we'll see if anyone agrees with me a year later, commenting on two years earlier. I'm not honest. We all know that. I'm not fake either, but I'll invent events, I'll invent occurrences, to make someone laugh, or to prove a point, or even to create drama, although I'm trying to stop. I never lie about what I feel though, I can say that.. honestly. Who would believe me either way, though? Unique: round and round and round. Everybody's unique in their own way. If everybody's unique, nobody is unique, by definition of 'unique'. I won't even go into it, but I'd never use that to describe myself anymore. Empathetic. Hardly. If I am, I don't show it. Lots of people come to me with their problems, and I will listen, but if what someone wants is coddling, they'd have to get it elsewhere. I'm almost mean about my advice, and I'll never admit that I know exactly how they feel, even though.. and if anybody who knows what I'm talking about is reading this, this might be a comfort.... I do. But when I was down and out, everybody coddled me, and so as a result I continued to be down and out, because the coddling was fun, and it got attention. Am I supposed to be embarrassed about this? It's true, everybody wants attention. Think about it in yourself. Blunt. Congratulations. Always, always blunt. That word could probably last at least five years. Quote me on that and laugh if I'm wrong. I don't know what I am now, though. Anyone have any ideas? What am I to you? Do you love me, do you hate me, do you think of any food, or any smell, or any sensation when I come to mind? Look at me, I can add 'pretentious' to the list if I keep this up assuming I mean anything at all to you. What am I still doing typing?
|