An Overdue Meditation
I am not going to give my recent sentiment justice because it is already too late to pack for my bon voyage to New York that happens tomorrow and because I am exhausted from sun, from work, and reconnecting with John on an overdue "how the hell are you doing" phone call. It was actually the third or fourth "how the hell you doing" phone call I've had this week. In addition, I've pushed my introspection from this quasi-public arena to a much more private place. I think it's been the first time I've successfully articulated my observations, now finally having some time and space away from school and that life, and maybe more pointedly, it might be the first time I have really appreciated my current place and understand why it's good and good for me. Here goes.
First of all, I am so thankful to be back in some, exclusive, one-on-one relationships. Just because living space was tight, I will always think of college as a time when I was going to school and living with a big extended family where every concern became immediate. I never went more than several hours without interacting with several of my friends and as a result, I had this big messy collective relationship without ever being able to slow down and appreciate individuals for the most striking qualities hidden in their personalities. Since the whole three-way calling thing is best left to brace-faced middle schoolers, geography and technology really forces me to forgo the group thing in favor of good old monogamous conversational tactics. I now see that it's much harder to hide things in these one on one conversations because groups tend to swallow and consume (and all of my friends talk so quickly) hesitating for a moment leaves you lost. But these conversations are meaningful and it's nice to be reminded of so many things I brushed off and never previously appreciated.
While I am now (from my wise post-grad point of view) finally seeing people as the individuals they are, I am coming to terms with the consequences of this paradigm shift. The idea of being an individual has new facets now that we aren't all in the same place. Middlebury really evened the playing field - we all mingled, ate, slept, and lived as close to identical lives as you could imagine while not living in a Fascist state. All of a sudden, with that great equalizer gone, other qualities start to emerge, namely,
how and where one lives. Now that dorms aren't an option, real estate is suddenly become a huge divisive issue. Here I'll fully admit my na�vet� because I've never had an apartment and this whole living alone routine is new to me (and thus it's in the forefront of my thinking), but talking about apartments, roommates, salaries, jobs, budgets are suddenly all tangled up and it seems to be the source of tension underlying most of these competitive and confusing relationships I've stepped in and muddied up. When I was young and figuring out my path in college, the future seemed unlimited. Finanical means are the only tangible restraints that really trap and force certain decisions. I've always known that money is a political entity, but more than ever, at this point in my life, it is the line in the sand. Within the people closest to me, goals are really emerging and flecks of character seems to shine where it had previously laid dormant. These financial differences and their impacts may have been present all along and we (I) willingly chose not to see them because we liked the security and had fun with the herd mentality of all being college students stranded in Vermont. Taken out of that environment and mindset, I have a better idea of who my real friends are and why our relationship works or where things never really meshed because were are fundamentally different kinds of people. Basically, I am saying that the group dynamic I was so accustomed to be going through a kind of British parliament-style devolution, and now that I examine the pieces that once made the whole, some of it is for the better and not surprisingly, some of it seems to be turning for the worst.
This is the first time I've felt normal in a very long time. To qualify this - I'd say that I've really enjoyed having ordinary days, keeping ordinary hours, and in general just doing very comprehensible easy tasks that don't shake the world. All too often in college I was wrapped exclusively in an ego-centric myth about how important I was and how important my work seemed to be. Between school or time in New York there were always these amazing bullet-point kind of agenda items that turned the ordinary topsy-turvy and everything therefore became extraordinary, extreme, and entirely out of proportion. Part of this might have been my own perception, but at the same time, I fully felt on the brink of something just about every day. Catching up with a friend after a month sounded like a top-rated prime time soap opera. Now, I've crawled off the ledge back to safety and my gardening and just going to work every day is not as bad a hat to wear as I once complained it was.
I think there is an underlying strain of classism that is the biggest undercurrent to my recent thinking about life. At first, it was really trying and humbling to be outside from "the bubble" of privledge. If I were to write a list of everything I am good at / excel at, on a day-to-day basis, I don't do many of those things right now. When I graduated and figured out something to do around town, I was handed a new list of expectations and all of my training up to this point really failed me in how under prepared I was to do something as menial as retail. I�ve also confronted the stigma of being a college grad living (I hesitate to use a verb as active as
living when I'm just bumming around) at home and for now, not being any kind of intelligible creature. At first I felt like I had really let myself and my standards down and settled for something below me, even if it was all a temporary arrangement.
Having done this for a while, I see now that being a world away from the elitism and unreality of Middlebury is the one thing I needed more than anything else. There, and of course this isn't any kind of new realization, my life was coddled. I couldn't be happier about heading to a giant public university where I expect to pick up, meet some of these ordinary and normal people, and be away from the extremes, the drama, and the absurdity of the last few years. Granted I am sure I'll have more extraordinary moments as a Grad student than I currently have as a retail queen, but maybe I am closer to a balance now and knowing what I want and what's good for me. But it's a refreshing change to have to deal with these aspects of real life that were always accounted for - living amongst others who are struggling to make their way and knowing that I have a network of friends scattered around and we are now linked by new commonalities about apartments and day to day stuff while balancing a full-plate of long term goals.
Lately I have an extreme respect for people that fit into the "self-made" category - those that go it alone when they have to or when they make it a priority. No one got to where they are going completely alone, but these are the extraordinary moments I've witnessed lately, like picking up and going to Thailand to pursue a new career, diving head on into work and earning respect, or moving to New York City with no money and no job and figuring things out one-step at a time. We're not in school any more, that's for sure. While in college dinner was a very big long and drawn out process for my friends and me. At the dinner table we frequently sat around and collected and compared our golden grades, but with the As and Bs behind us, there's a completely new criteria that isn't set in stone. We're not taking the same classes and no one is subject to the same rules. I admit that it is hard NOT to resent people that have an easier way -- no matter how that�s defined; be it a parental allowance, living closer to home than others, or people that make more money and get more credit who work half as hard.
It's too late and this rant isn't making much sense at all - I guess the important thing to note is that I've been connecting with a lot of old friends lately on a whole wealth of new topics and we're all interested and possibly obsessed with the idea of independence and being the masters of our own destinies.
I am really glad I got this off my chest, even if it makes very little sense of the surface.
posted by lmjasinski at 1:15 AM
