10/2
I don't really know what I'm trying to do by starting a blog. I think my thoughts and experiences crave to be documented. I think this way because I miss a lot of things, and a part of me believes that I will not miss them as much if I have a way to go back to them. I'm someone who already starts to miss the light of the day as I watch the sunset. Sometimes I already start to miss people while I have them right in front of me. This makes it hard for me to stay present with many things, I am so easily affected by what is temporary and fleeting, which as it turns out, is everything. I'm terrified of time running out. But, beautiful moments come as quickly as they go and we cannot hold onto them. This always gets to me, that there's no real way to re-visit memories. Only in dreams, and in photographs, in conversation, maybe in diaries. I'm not good at keeping up with those classic old hand-written diaries, but typing requires much less effort so maybe this will be good for me. Maybe this will help me cope with the inevitable, sad, incredible passage of time.
This is a strange point in my life. I just graduated from college in May, from the wonderful University of Vermont. It took me four years of slow unfolding and re-folding but I found a place that I belonged in and will always partially belong to. And then, somehow, despite all my futile wishes that my time would stop for a while or maybe just slow down a smidgen... mine expired and I was left, in the most dramatic of fashions, to start anew. Or at least start back where I began, back in the suburbs of New York. It only took a few weeks back at home to start to feel that I hadn't gone anywhere in the first place. Sitting at home, missing college, wondering where I was going next, trudging through job applications and interviews hoping I would somehow find direction. Do we find direction or does it find us? Don't know. All I know is I wanted to do anything to avoid feeling trapped. And for some reason the idea of starting a research job or a teaching job gave me that very feeling. When the summer ended, I needed to go. I didn't know where, but I needed to. In an effort to fulfill this need I applied for the traveling Americorps program, NCCC, and resigned all my other options in full and blind hope I'd be accepted. Thankfully, hours after rejecting my only other remaining job option, Americorps emailed me on my birthday and let me know that I was accepted and that I would leave for Sacramento in October. When I got this email things became a little lighter. I was so excited I think I cried, it just felt so inexplicably right to me. I officially had something to do for the next year, thank goodness. And it was something that allowed me to travel around the West Coast (a mini dream of mine) and to help people (a bigger picture dream of mine). The job description seemed to fulfill a yearning in me to challenge myself, throw me out of my comfort zone and into new experiences, to live more humbly, and to understand more about myself and what I want. This is very cheesy, I know. But cheesiness is awfully helpful in convincing myself I'm making the right decisions.
Bottom line, Americorps seemed like a good thing to do, and now I'm doing it. In 9 days. They sent me my duffel bag today, which is pretty much the only luggage I can bring with me besides a carry-on. This helped the whole leaving thing feel a little more real to me, although not much. I can tell my mind isn't fully invested in the idea of moving across the country. It has hit me in small waves, like when I said goodbye to my friends in Vermont last week and told them I'd see them in a year. Or when I was walking away from Kerry's apartment last night after hugging her good-bye. In these "goodbye" moments I've had mini realization that my life will change very much very soon. But, there's no reason to dwell on this. Everyone's lives are changing, all the time. We're never ready for it, it just happens and we roll with it. I don't know if this change will ever hit me. One day soon I will just be in California, and I will adapt, and that will be that. Maybe it'll hit me on the plane ride there. Or maybe it will hit me one day in the middle of Idaho while I'm digging holes or building houses or farming potatoes and I'll freak the heck out because I'm in the middle of Idaho and life is super weird. But maybe it won't freak me out at all, because life is super weird but it's also super good at the same time and that is something I can always seek comfort in.
Cheesy afterthought: Yesterday, when I was at Niagara Falls with Holly, she gave me a quarter so I could make a wish. Perhaps in attempt to ease my uncertainties about the future, I wished that whatever it holds is beyond our wildest and most beautiful dreams. I looked around a little while later and realized how incredible everything is and how lucky I am right now. It was a beautiful day and I was in a breathtaking place and the sun was shining and I wasn't sad or worried or troubled and I was with someone I love who also loves me. I realized life exceeds my wildest dreams every day in the simplest of ways, and there isn't much to be worried about at all.
~V
This is a strange point in my life. I just graduated from college in May, from the wonderful University of Vermont. It took me four years of slow unfolding and re-folding but I found a place that I belonged in and will always partially belong to. And then, somehow, despite all my futile wishes that my time would stop for a while or maybe just slow down a smidgen... mine expired and I was left, in the most dramatic of fashions, to start anew. Or at least start back where I began, back in the suburbs of New York. It only took a few weeks back at home to start to feel that I hadn't gone anywhere in the first place. Sitting at home, missing college, wondering where I was going next, trudging through job applications and interviews hoping I would somehow find direction. Do we find direction or does it find us? Don't know. All I know is I wanted to do anything to avoid feeling trapped. And for some reason the idea of starting a research job or a teaching job gave me that very feeling. When the summer ended, I needed to go. I didn't know where, but I needed to. In an effort to fulfill this need I applied for the traveling Americorps program, NCCC, and resigned all my other options in full and blind hope I'd be accepted. Thankfully, hours after rejecting my only other remaining job option, Americorps emailed me on my birthday and let me know that I was accepted and that I would leave for Sacramento in October. When I got this email things became a little lighter. I was so excited I think I cried, it just felt so inexplicably right to me. I officially had something to do for the next year, thank goodness. And it was something that allowed me to travel around the West Coast (a mini dream of mine) and to help people (a bigger picture dream of mine). The job description seemed to fulfill a yearning in me to challenge myself, throw me out of my comfort zone and into new experiences, to live more humbly, and to understand more about myself and what I want. This is very cheesy, I know. But cheesiness is awfully helpful in convincing myself I'm making the right decisions.
Bottom line, Americorps seemed like a good thing to do, and now I'm doing it. In 9 days. They sent me my duffel bag today, which is pretty much the only luggage I can bring with me besides a carry-on. This helped the whole leaving thing feel a little more real to me, although not much. I can tell my mind isn't fully invested in the idea of moving across the country. It has hit me in small waves, like when I said goodbye to my friends in Vermont last week and told them I'd see them in a year. Or when I was walking away from Kerry's apartment last night after hugging her good-bye. In these "goodbye" moments I've had mini realization that my life will change very much very soon. But, there's no reason to dwell on this. Everyone's lives are changing, all the time. We're never ready for it, it just happens and we roll with it. I don't know if this change will ever hit me. One day soon I will just be in California, and I will adapt, and that will be that. Maybe it'll hit me on the plane ride there. Or maybe it will hit me one day in the middle of Idaho while I'm digging holes or building houses or farming potatoes and I'll freak the heck out because I'm in the middle of Idaho and life is super weird. But maybe it won't freak me out at all, because life is super weird but it's also super good at the same time and that is something I can always seek comfort in.
Cheesy afterthought: Yesterday, when I was at Niagara Falls with Holly, she gave me a quarter so I could make a wish. Perhaps in attempt to ease my uncertainties about the future, I wished that whatever it holds is beyond our wildest and most beautiful dreams. I looked around a little while later and realized how incredible everything is and how lucky I am right now. It was a beautiful day and I was in a breathtaking place and the sun was shining and I wasn't sad or worried or troubled and I was with someone I love who also loves me. I realized life exceeds my wildest dreams every day in the simplest of ways, and there isn't much to be worried about at all.
~V
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