To the age of 23.

Feeling lost and hopeless in D.C., that’s how most of us feel from time to time. Whether or not we’re from the city and without our reliable friendships, whether or not we like or hate our jobs, whether or not we believe that we will change the world, whether or not we believe that we have a purpose.

In the past two years, I may have become the only person who is actually depressed in the spring. I used to be refreshed by the sun and the people around me, but the scenes of winter, looking in at people in restaurants while bundled up and rushing through the streets for some reason felt more accurate about life. The truth is that spring is a time of rebirth and refreshing, but what am I remaking myself into? Haven’t I been doing this for however long I’ve been conscious, and as it turns out I am still who I am. I can’t escape myself.

We don’t remake ourselves in moments and instances and flashes of light. We get remade over time. But that process depends entirely on memory. And what’s its worth if our memories are so fragile to our own biases? Is remaking ourselves only a fiction that we create for ourselves? Then again our friends can see changes in ourselves, and I have seen friends change over time, who swing to someone unrecognizable before returning to someone I know and like. It’s as if they have to swing to some extreme and then they reinvent the middle and negotiate back to that place. But that begs the question, are we always in extremes? When are we in the middles again?

Being 23, it’s also strange to know what we’re aspiring to. Middle class? If you’re raised middle class, that’s where you assume that you’ll be. Wealth? Respect? Power?

Happiness?

But do any of us really ever know what happiness is? No. We’re taught this again and again. We know that the more we focus on happiness, the less happy we can be. So how do we end up happy? Do we find things to strive for and in those spare moments is that when we become joyous at the relief?

Our parents raised us telling us what would make us happy… and more importantly, what wouldn’t. Wealth won’t make you happy. Work won’t make you happy. The truth is though that doing nothing doesn’t make me happy. Neither does being poor.

I also know, however, that I haven’t been happy in awhile. I feel lost in the expectations and regularity and the ambiguity of finally doing it for myself.

recent relationship contemplations

Why do we as girls still worry and wait for a relationship? And where's the line between just being flexible and bending, and being taken advantage of? Where's the point where "doing your own thing" makes you egotistical and demanding? Or are all these ideas arbitrary? I've been reading Blink and it's an interesting point of how so many small factors lead up to these bigger ideas. Can you really even isolate one thing in a relationship as the breaking point?

Personally, I'm not sure I'm ever meant to be in a relationship, or that I could be in one, or could be all that happy in one, and I'm beginning to realize that it might not be worthwhile to pressure myself to find that right person. There doesn't have to be that person.

Besides, how much control do we really have over our own lives? It seems that people come in and out and we can make decisions to get ourselves into certain situations but when it comes to actual interactions, we only have so much control over when we actually meet people.

The transition to the real world. OR I don't write this way.

The problem is that I’m being asked to write before 10 p.m. I’ve done it before in college, but that was also when I had a hard and fast deadline. Now not only are they asking me to write between the hours of 8:30 and 4:30, when the sun’s up and most children are at school, they’re asking me to write without any sort of time pressure. I’m my own boss now?

To overcome this problem, I’d usually just fix my location. I varied my spot in the library based on my feelings. Perhaps, in the morning, I’d be near a window to embrace the morning light. At night, I might retreat to a couch where I could snuggle up and combat the encroaching hours of a.m.

Now I’m in a cubicle. A cubicle with a desktop. My ass has literally begun flattening because I sit in the same chair. I can’t get up and walk in circles around my computer, trying to get my brain to work. I can’t move locations for the right writing “vibe.” No, I’m imprisoned with my computer, where everyone can watch me and access my productivity.

bitch has my nalgene (or, the waiting around conundrum)

So, bitch (as in "bitch didn't call me back"-bitch), has my nalgene.

Now, I want said nalgene back. First, because it's mine and bitch didn't call me when he said he would... or actually ever call to ask me on a third date but you know whatever.... (addendum: So that makes me sound like a conniving, controlling girl - which I believe I am not. I just think if you say you'll call on Sunday and I have to call you on Thursday to reclaim my shit, that that qualifies as communication retardation). Second, I no longer attend the college from which I bought nalgene. Ergo, nalgene needs to come back for "sentimental reasons." Third, (put simply) I now hate you, Aaron.

So after the previously referenced phone call, he said he would "drop it off sometime this weekend" (and hey, I even offered to let him make good on the joke that he would mail it to me). The problem with this, however, is that now every time I'm sitting around the house with nothing to do, I feel like I have to leave in order to not be "waiting around for him for him to call." And it's not like I'm actually waiting for him to call. Quite frankly, my life is rather dull at the moment. But just doing nothing makes me just feel like I am waiting for him to call, and that is deeply disturbing my usually pleasant Saturday laziness. Instead of feeling like a bum, I feel like a girl. Fuck.

And it's not like I'm helping myself by leaving my phone upstairs. As a matter of fact, I'm actually obsessively checking my phone with the primary motive of waiting for a call to get myself out of the house so I'm not "sitting around waiting for his call." So I'm sitting around waiting for someone to call to distract me from sitting around waiting for his call. Then, the moment my phone rings I'm torn between the hope that it's my heroic friend ready to rescue me and that it's Aaron.

And yes, with that slip, I'll admit, I'm waiting for his call. It's true. I am waiting for a call from a guy who never wants to see me again. Emotional instability? Check "YES" for that one.

oh yeah.

And thus, with this, my blog, I quit fighting my inner tool. Because it's hard to stand on the edge of being a tool and wanting to fight it so bad in order to avoid being "that girl with a blog," and then realize that you're never doing any writing like you promised yourself you would so you might as well have that blog.

(Break. Breathe. Ahem.)

One could translate that sentence as: I am making this blog because I don't do any writing even though I pretended that I wanted to be a writer at one point in my life.

But I like it the way I phrased it before better.
Be indirect.
Be happy.
Be inane.
It's just how I roll. (Confession.... I also almost wrote roooooll but the mere fact that I am just blogging, I have decided that I must limit all and any emoticons and generally aim-ish speak).

So let me lay some ground rules for blog:
- blog will not revert to a teenage rant.
- blog will try to be introspective but fail.
- blog will always be funnier when i'm angry.
- blog will never use "u," "ur," ":)," or variation of these... unless for dramatic effect

((Kerrie, since you're the only one who will ever see blog as of right now, then you are responsible for mainting policing of blogging rules. Let me know when I go too emo, okay?))

Anyway, everyone wants to be a writer, not everyone has anything to say.
I probably don't, but that's never stopped me before.