I wrote this back in July and just stumbled upon it again. I think I still feel the way I did when I wrote this, if not more so now that the days until I leave for college are dwindling in number.
So today's the day we pack up and leave our humble Cape abode for the real world again. Leaving is always my least favorite part of a vacation, but I guess most people would agree with me on that. There is something unsettling about having to pick up and ship off, especially following a vacation, which is so short. You've barely established normalcy in your "new" (or current) home, and just as things are starting to become comfortable, and feel "right," you have to uproot and move on once more. I feel like this is the same with my life right now. I moved here last year, withdrawing myself from a home that had taken me 5 years to mold and craft into something I loved and within which I fit. The past year and a half, I have come to live within a new life, one I love more deeply than my old lives, and one that, quite frankly, I'm not yet ready to leave. I hear all the time that the friends you meet in college are the friends that stay with you for the rest of your life. But what about my high school friends? Laura, Leanne, Katie--the three of them are my closest, best friends and I hate the idea that college is going to "replace" them with newer and better people. The same goes with so many other people here. I want my friends, both new and old, to peacefully coexist within my world. So few of my friends from Duxbury survived the physical distance that came between us, and the few friends that remain I'm even more scared of losing--because my connection to them, within just a few short months, will be doubly removed, if that makes any sense.
I guess what this all boils down to is the fact that I am not good with change. I say I like it, and I do, but I also hate the chaos it causes internally, the frantic searching that ensues to rediscover myself in the latest form of me, Sam. I am excited for the fall, excited to meet new girls from all over the world. I've been talking enthusiastically with girls from Sri Lanka, Japan, England, all of whom seem so anticipatory and so ready to get on with this next part of their lives. I want to be just as ready as them, but I feel like the next chapter of my life will be incomplete-- incomplete because I will have no guy friends within it, incomplete because not all of my friends will be with me every step of the way to share it, incomplete because every time I have to start from scratch, I feel like I always leave something out, and I'm never quite sure what it is, if I really did forget something.
There's a beautiful quote from the song "Hummingbird," by Wilco.
Remember to remember me,
standing still in your past,
floating fast like a hummingbird.
It is childish to admit, but I wish we could all be hummingbirds, suspending ourselves within each other's pasts so that we can always come back to this part of our lives, so that we never have to leave it all behind for good.
Does this make any sense? Sometimes I feel delusional.
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As someone who went through this exact experience recently, let me lend you a few honest words on the subject... Though it seems impossible to live without your friends, especially those who you are closest with, this experience will show you exactly who you are. Let this experience be a check-point. If you find yourself unhappy, let it be a sign that its time to change yourself, not your surroundings and not those around you. Over the next year, you will change and your friends will change as well. You'll learn to think for yourself, decide what's important to YOU, and what kind of people you want to take on your journey. As cliche as it may sound, change is a part of life. And let me clarify that by saying "Thats life," it is not a way to dismiss these changes in the same way people say "shit happens." Accepting changes as a part of life means embracing these so-called bumps in the road and realizing that they are part of the bigger picture that will forever shape who we are as people and what we can accomplish and overcome. This being said, never settle for stagnation and embrace whatever may be thrown a you. Best of luck in college
ReplyDeletehey Sam, this might sound selfish of me, but i am sorta 'glad' i read this. i thought i was being weird about all this - and part of me feels like it's really childish. i just know i'll miss my friends and family like crazy, and now that's it's so close i feel a tad reluctant,haha! but it's a natural reaction isn't it? we're all good at adapting but at the turning point itself, it might get nauseatingly difficult, but we'll manage.
ReplyDeletealso to the commentor above me, Thank you!!