catching up

This semester, I have been a bit through the wringer. I feel like every day is busier than the last, and my piles of obligations are teetering. And so, in a coffee shop where my friend works, I sit and try to complete some of those obligations. I write the remainder of my article for my school’s paper and I read an article my professor sent me and I respond to emails and I make my to-do list for the coming week and I do some assigned reading and I brainstorm paper ideas and I… and I… and I… and I…

I can’t say that this hasn’t been a good semester. I now have an apartment with three of my good friends, I’ve (mostly) overcome the imposter syndrome I used to feel in my academic life, I love my job, etc. I genuinely feel so, so grateful for the way life is going.

I can’t say this semester has been totally good, though. I kind of mentioned in my last post (which has been a while ago, I’m sorry for the inconsistency) that as soon as I got back from the Olympics, I went right back to school for a week of RA training and then that went straight into school. I failed to mention that towards the end of that week of RA training, my childhood neighbor passed away. He was a big part of my life, especially from 5th grade when they moved in next door to, honestly, when he passed away. 

A big loss will always make life more difficult, I just hadn’t quite accounted for how. I lost both of my maternal grandparents my freshman year of college, but we had kind of seen that coming. This was a shock. Out of the blue. I mean, we grew up together. We’ve seen each other through the awkward phases, weak-armed tree climbing (me), middle school band, exploring the woods, running from imaginary bad guys. Now, there are no bad guys. No saxophones or tubas. 

I don’t want to make this a post specifically about grief, because I don’t think I’m the one that can talk about it well. I’ve always struggled with how to handle loss, and this one has felt different than any other death in my life. I’ve turned to literature to try and process my grief, and I still can’t figure it out. It’s just a different reality to live in but it didn’t come with any manual. What do you do with grief if it’s hard to utter its name aloud?

That has been a huge part of my semester. To be candid with you, there have been times this semester where I have felt like I was imploding. Death, hundreds of pages of reading a week, obligations all over campus, a social life. In this time of extreme busy, there are moments, like now, where I realize that all I’ve lost myself in all of the things piling on. You know when people ask a fun fact about you and you freeze, realizing that you’ve got nothing interesting to share. Or worse, they ask about your hobbies. I don’t have time for hobbies, you think, but you’ve got to come up with something fast because you’re 21. You should be having fun and exploring outlets of interest and you should be well rounded outside of the classroom. I mean, you’re almost fully developed. 

But what do you say when you have no hobbies? I write, I read, I do schoolwork, I hang out with my friends. My life has been stuck in this routine for like eight weeks now, but even further back than that, the last time I was truly into a hobby was knitting my senior year of high school. I’m a senior in college now. I’ve lost the knitting. I read and I write. All the time. But never for fun anyone. I’m reading Thoreau and Milton and Derrida (didn’t even know who he was until this semester). I’m writing papers about Frederick Douglass and articles about campus events. It is all school, except for pockets of time like this where I neglect my obligations that definitely rank higher on the priority list, just to spend 30+ minutes word-vomiting all over a Google Doc and post it to my blog. 

When is there time for thinking real thoughts? I’m consumed with thoughts of school and how to understand anything going on, all while there is this little presence behind me, trying to remind me that the human existence can be more than this. I mean, I swam in the Mediterranean Sea this summer! And now I’m here?! In a small Kentucky town almost no one has heard of, at a school that I’m still trying to learn to love, and I’m reading things I can’t understand. How does life just go from one extreme to another? 

That’s kind of the catch-up I’ve been neglecting to write. I really have loved about 95% of this semester’s moments, it just can be difficult to ground myself at times and remember that, even with all the stress, I love it. Even if I’ve lost a bit of myself, I’m growing in ways that I didn’t realize I could. And I couldn’t do it without my roommates, which helps me realize that life is 10x better when those around you constantly support and challenge you. Cliché, but true. 

I’m not really sure where to end this blog. I hope it served as a reminder that seasons will pass, and none of us know what the heck is going on. 

See you next time. Thanks for reading.