This I Know Is True

Driving home tonight from NoPo, watching the stars come out for the first time in weeks, it was like opening my eyes wider than I have in a very long time. I can't quite explain it, just like pulling at my eyelids to see bigger.

I've let so many revelations sift through my fingers this year. Looking back, I really wish I'd written more, because I find the things I do manage to catch an notice and entomb so true and so real and so ridiculous. I feel sometimes like I notice and ruminate so much, but rarely actually acknowledge the churnings of my brain.

And even still, I'm stalling. Playing in words, yet stalling none the less.

So here it is. Things that I know to be solemnly and gut-wrenchingly true right now in this moment. Pitching tents yesterday smelled like dirt and sunshine and bugspray and the smell itself made me irrepressably content. My cell phone and maybe my laptop need some serious TLC very very soon. My family is crazy and intense and a wee bit possesive but I love them anyway. I have a very hard time letting people do something nice for me. I'm humble to a fault. I have some really irritating facial hair issues right now that I'm trying not to let bother me. I haven't told CO or Birch Trail that my knees are less than 100% there, and I'm absolutely terrified that I'm not going to make it through Utah in one piece. I sometimes, however rarely, have a hard time admitting that I need help. I wonder alot about what will happen the next time I get depressed, regardless of the emotional state I'm currently in. It hasn't yet hit me that I'm a soon-to-be college graduate. I wish I were proud of that fact, and proud of my school. There are quite a few people that have meant something to me in the last couple of years that I don't forsee staying in contact with. For all, this is just reality. For some, this is beyond devestating. I have stage fright. I wish I were happy with my thesis because the process and the topic have meant so much to me. Even though I've created my adult identityround being independent and adventurous, I think its time to be closer to family for a while. I find this fact incredibly controversial, and am having a hard time wrapping myself around it. I know that by eating better, being poor, and obsessing a wee-bit, and of course my ever productive and batshit INSANE excercise for endorphins, I've lost about 10 pounds in about a month. I know that I have a love hat relationship with being in control. I know that learning to tie a bowline correctly, and then teaching it yesterday felt as much of accomplishment as my thesis, if not moreso. I know that I'm tired of this weather, but sunshine would make it even harder to leave this city in a few weeks. I knot that environmentalism is frusterating. I know that I can't even imagine what rural living will be like. I know that I'm arguing with myself secretly about applying for a job I saw teaching at a poor public school in Estonia of all places. I know that I'm maybe ready to admit that there is a place for teaching in my future, just as long as I can o it my way. I know a large and growing part of me is really itching to travel again, but I can't imagine not pursuing the wilderness thing. I've postponed it for so long, resisted the idea for even longer. But I also know that the randomness, most impulsive gut instinct decisions have gotten me the very furthest.

I know that writting is good, but sometimes staring out the window is even better

The Many Things I Should Be Doing Right Now...

I can't help but avoid the page right now. Avoiding many things right now, namely, owning up to myself that I'm a little freaked out about all of the impending changes in my life. More than a little. Its hard to admit that I'm a bit shook up about leaving, since being here, being in college has been so difficult for me.

And I have a bit of a track record at this point for not dealing well with large transitions. I think thats maybe a better word for it, I'm not concerned entirely, I'm anxious. And curious. Anxiously curious. I'm not afraid, nostalgic maybe, but not scared. I have every faith that things will work out for me. No idea how, exactly. But they will. It's the out-of-balance crazy of having no idea how to imagine four months from now that really throws me. I'm fighting the disonance of mistakenly believing that if I had more time I could some how sort through all of these misguided notions and figure out how I really feel.

So today, instead of finishing one of my last research papers for a very long time, instead of sitting and dealing with myself, instead of hanging out with some amazing people while I have the chance, I avoided. Today I spent two hours in the gym working up some sweet happy brain chemicals. Today I actually legitimately did homework briefly. I made two aborted efforts to score some free Ben & Jerry's.

And maybe most rad, I spent two hours in the warehouse pulling gear for Utah. And finally finally learning how to tie a bowline. Which means there will be no bears in my food bags this summer in the northwoods, no sir!

Ok, so maybe you had to be there.

At any rate, there is apparently no brain skills left to ruminate on the coming transformations. So I'm going to finish my wine, stop pretending like I'm going to make more progress on this paper tonight, suck it up and admit that it's going to be another 5 am work session, and go to bed.

They Like Me, They Really Like Me!

There is nothing quite like reading one's letters of recommendation to temporarily boost a girl's self confidence. Nothing.

More Soon. Thesis Deadline Approaching. Which Could Go Either Way. Assuming I don't fail BIO 100 that is.

Gosh Peggy, Shape up.

Sun On My Face

Playing Hookie

Springtime is glorious

Sometimes I have supreme difficulties supressing my desire

To climb trees