Week 1: Things that are, things that aren't, and a decent amount of booz...

It's never like you expect. Sometimes it's worse, sometimes it's better, but it's never the way you picture it. Just about everything you don't have control over in life ends up this way. Time at school is no exception. Anticipating something for 3 long months will help cultivate some very strange assumptions about the coming year. And when you toss the feelings of someone else into the mix, well, kiss your rational thoughts goodbye....at least that's what I do.

Overthinking is going to be the death of me, and late night writing is never a very big help...which is why this is being written on a saturday morning when I should just try to force myself back to bed.

You could call the first week busy, or hectic, or stressful, or intimidating, even for a senior who rolls eyes at the freshmen and their shaking knees. I've done just about all of it before. I've seen it all before. I know the people, the layout, the profs, the work, everything....well, not everything. And it's those things that I don't have a handle on that are making this first month back harder than I ever wanted to believe.

All summer I was caught wondering how to handle my life right now. The constant verbal bludgeoning with heavy phrases like "Live in the moment!", and "Stop planning ahead on this!" make me want to scream; because not only have they slowly worked their way into my mind to become something I might consider, but they still go against just about everything I stand for in the way that I direct my life, for varying reasons.

Don't get me wrong, it would be WAY too easy for me to just say 'fine, I'll just force myself to not worry, or think about the future, or anything, and just be blissfully ignorant in the moment'. But then all I could do is look in the mirror and call that man a fool. There are things going on in my life that mean a lot to me, and all I'm getting from everyone close to me is that I can't be myself to get through them - I have to CHANGE. Change behavior, change outlook, change what matters to me. How am I supposed to be happy if I'm just going to deny all the things that help me make important decisions?

Of course, the object of my frustrations is no help at all. That should probably clue me into something too, but..."oh, just keep trying, something will work out." I can hear her opinions about me any time, day or night, from her roommates, or her friends, but just try and talk to her, and all I get is a frightened/intimidated/uninterested girl putting on her dating training wheels and steering the metaphorical bike right into a tree. I'd just as soon walk the lonlier road than face the burn of another innocently cutting denial of my character/datability. This is a hassle I know I don't need.

I am back to being sick and tired of feeling like this whole ordeal is just some mirage-type deal that I can see but can't ever attain. When something frustrates me this much, I'll be the first to say I lose sight of any positive benefits of actually getting what I work for (a healthy relationship). But what I lack in drunken optimism I try to make up for in perspective. Most of the time that just gets me labeled a cynic and then whoever I'm arguing with leaves. Meh. If they can't handle trying to help me face my fears, then I'll do it the same way I always do. Alone.
In the end, I can temper everything almost beautifully by maintaining what no one can ever take away from me, no matter the topic at hand - my ability to close off my emotions in damage control and survive. Nothing I get myself into ever grows to the point that I can't come back from it. Eventually someday I might have strong enough feelings for someone that a new level of trust will become necessary...but until then, I work to keep my life under control, in spite of everyone else's, well, loose opinions about how I should live.

All that being said, I'm still going to try as hard as I can to see where this interaction between me and this girl goes. If it blows up in my face, well I have tons of practce in that to fall back on. If it works out, well, that's the whole point, right?

---------------In other news---------------

(hereafter known as everything that's on "The Back-Burner" of my mind. Shut up...it's early, and I'm doing my best to be clever, damn it...I mean, nobody's forcing you to read this.)

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  FOOTBALL IS ONLY A WEEK AWAY!!!!!!!!!! MINDLESS VIOLENCE IN THE NAME OF GLORY, HERE WE COME! And damn it, Castille, for being a selfish jackass.


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  Classes are new, shiny, and intimidating if only for their inability to be nailed down so I can figure out just how little I'll have to try to get that all-elusive 4.0 this year. Also, turns out the rumors are true - rock band will NOT help you learn guitar. At all. In any way. Other than the general frustrations of trying to play the damn thing without looking at the 'chords'. That version of frustration is about the same.


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  I do miss the family some, and I wish I had the time/patience to call them without the sure-fire guarantee that I'm going to start an argument with my parents somehow. Oh well.


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  I haven't played soccer yet, and it's probably part of what's working so hard to make me depressed. Oh, that, and the list of people I wish didn't know I was here.


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  I've lost 3 years of inside jokes by not having a motivation to write them down. 7 if you count high school. So here's the best ones of this week that aren't being immortalized by shell's quote wall:

(Hunter swaying back and forth, from Chipotle: "I'm freakin out, man! I'm freaking out!")

(The Bike Club Club)

Countdown Aftermath

There's something to be said for waiting. There's also something to be said for waiting patiently. One is mandatory, the other just makes you look mature.

On the one hand, there's waiting anxiously for things to end. The more I experience and live, the more I'm realizing that very few things can really fit this category and not make me regret it later. I'm not sorry that some of my classes ended. I'm not sorry my warehouse job ended. And at the same time, wishing them away just ruins it for all the things that were going on at the same time and not getting the attention they deserved. Like finding time for myself. Finding time to hang out with my brothers. Finding time to enjoy the awesome weather we've had all summer. Seeing the actual headway I've made in terms of money so that this year can be a lot more fun. All these things get covered over by the constant cloud of lousiness that ruled over this summer.

(This should have been posted sooner, I just didn't have the time to do it. I might add to it later, but then again I might not)

Step One: Waste Time. Step Two: Hate Strongly. Step Three: Panic

What a summer. Future me, when you read this, whenever that may be, I'm sure you (I? We? How do you talk in the first, second, and third persons in one sentence? ah well) will be in a better situation than the one I occupy currently. Two jobs at the same time is, first of all, ridiculous. I have not had a full day off from any manual work in over a month. Currently my roommate is trying to spend my money in advance on tickets and trips to do random college things that I have no excuse not to do. This is not unexpected, but it's making my efforts to make a little extra money this summer feel like I'm not quite making the headway that I was originally going to.

I'm worn to pieces, and the idea that a year of college full of pressures to get closer to a 4.0, get a good grade on the GRE, and find a grad school is a MORE RELAXING proposition than living through another month of a summer like this, is just crazy.

And yet, I'm going to miss this point in my life terribly.

This is my last summer as an undergrad. After this, I can't really claim to be a kid anymore. I'll have a college degree. I'll have an apartment for grad school basically living on my own. I feel like if I screw this up now, my brothers will have little reason to give a damn what I do next fall, or any time after that. We haven't had what you'd call a really great summer. Death in the family brings people together regardless of what they consciously try to do, but beyond that, it's just been a lousy summer that, for better or worse, is what I have to hold on to in terms of memories.

I spent most of this summer wishing it away. I blindly love college, and I'm not ashamed of that. The people there, the things we get to do, the total lack of maturity in general is refreshing and keeps me going. But summers at home aren't going to be there forever, as retardedly obvious as that sounds. Sure this is as serious as this stupid blog has gotten so far, but such is this time in my life, so it will get written down.

This summer I have hated the jobs I've had, the people I've had to deal with, the funeral I had to help in, the online classes I had to take, the shadowing that alienated me, and the lack of friends in this nowhere of a place I'm now obligated to call home. There are so many negative things that have happened in the past 3 months that I can hardly stand it.

I suppose a lot has gone right too, and there's a lot of promise going into the fall. Life seems to balance itself out, no matter how insane it gets at some points. I had some pressing debts to pay, and this summer I have worked my ass off completely to get them paid and get a little ahead. I was staring graduation in the face, and these online classes fell right in where I needed them. Hopefully the trend continues with my stupid GRE and a few other things, one of which being girl-related.

Yes, there it is. There is a girl that eats up a significant chunk of the free time I have in my mind. I have a few opinions about the whole thing, but the beginning of summer is NOT the time to start talking about feelings with a girl you can't see for 3 months. It eats at your brain like few things can. And you are reading the product of a guy who thinks WAAAAAAAY too much about a great number of things. Personally, I just want to prove to myself that I can hold a relationship together past 2 months. That seems to be the ceiling to whatever social happiness I am inherently entitled to.

There is something about having feelings for someone that leaves you freed and at the same time dangerously stuck on the ground. The optimistic thoughts in my head stand little chance, since they are decidedly the away team in my brain, and the crowd is not a friendly one.

I am also definitely ready for football season, if that was any indication. In the meantime, I'm going to write more when I'm not so tired.