I need to apologize a bit here, and also say something important. This blog has fallen by the wayside this year, but I want to change that. I will be heading to college in the fall, and I think it would be a great idea to use this space as a way to document my college journey, from a more personal standpoint.
There’s something so compelling about beginning the college journey, something about the transition from high school to college compels me to pay attention. Maybe it’s just that I’m here, but I think there is something different at play here, something more compelling than any other transition in life. College feels like the last stage of growing up, like I’ll go off to Minnesota and become an adult in a flash, magic, sparkles, and all that.
No one has told me that that’s how it would be, but, then again, everyone has. Media paints college as this big life event, but I’m beginning to think it will be just another day, just another day when you do things you have never done before in your life and don’t do anything you’ve done every day before.
However, there have been a few ‘big life milestone’ letdowns in my life lately. I went to prom last week, and it was fine. Not particularly special, definitely not life-changing, just fine. I was quite anxious because there were too many people there, and I was forced to wear my shoes (which were high heels). However, I did see my friends and have a fine time. What if college is like that?
What if college is just fine, nothing in particular, just another day? Every sign points to it being amazing, but I’ve been wrong before. I suppose what I’m really worried about is the possibility that going to college will be no big deal, that I will have worked for so long for not much excitement.
Anyway, I want to use this blog to document my college journey, no matter how it turns out. I plan to post every week, and I hope I will be able to stick to that.
That last paragraph was how I planned to end this post, but, as you can see, I have decided that there is something else I need to say. I think that one of the reasons I have not been as comfortable with this blog as I had hoped I would be is an uncomfortability with others paying attention to me. I was reading this NY Times article, when I realized that I fit into it perfectly. I am uncomfortable with writing purely about myself. Fiction is fine because the speaker is not me. My current book is about Vaessa, not me, even though we are very similar. But, personal essays have always thrown me for a loop. I am profoundly uncomfortable with talking about myself, writing about myself. I feel like I am not worthy of being known by others, even as I spend time on the internet learning about other people who might share that same mentality. It’s difficult, in this era to feel that one’s personal life is all that interesting.
However, that might just be a me problem. As is quite evident on social media, this generation has no qualms about spreading their personal lives far and wide, but I wonder how much of this is due to a desire to be recognized by other people, not a fear of being forgotten. In these days, it feels like the lack of an Instagram account forces one to accept a quick descent into obscurity, an obscurity which can only be escaped by the acquisition of said account. Is it any wonder that I am reluctant to renounce social media—yet equally reluctant to embrace it? In a world increasingly defined by who we are online, I feel the need to be defined by something else—nothing. Or rather, I choose to be defined by a lack of clear definitions. After all, people are not boxes.
Thank you so much for reading.
See you soon…
~Susie
Chorus of the Day:
And I'm just a little bit caught in the middle
I try to keep going but it's not that simple
I think I'm a little bit caught in the middle
Gotta keep going or they'll call me a quitter
Yeah, I'm caught in the middle
Last Chorus of the Day:
Machine by Misterwives
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