Sorry it's been so long
It's been ten days since I last posted; sorry for the hiatus.
Lots of little things have happened in the interim. Worked a Saturday, attended the Pancake Breakfast and feasted on delicious flapjacks, consequently didn't have much of a weekend. Been working through making edits on The Silence, though I'm only 2/3 of the way through in red pen and a little more than half that in actual edits to the electronic version.
I am feeling more stressed now that it's completed than I did beforehand, because the pressure to work on it is actually more acute. Here's a breakdown of my thought process:
Oh lord, this is never going to get published. No matter how good it might be, the odds are small, and it's only so good!
Nonsense-- of course it will get published, you just need to make the effort.
I don't have time to make the effort! Etc. etc.
Every six months or so I have these conversations with my mother in which she attempts to assuage my anxiety about being so far from most of my friends by telling me that "friends change," and that this is a transition that I am going to make mentally within the next few years. She suggests that the emotional space once filled by my boon companions will one day be occupied by my children.
If this is a natural outcome of growing up, it is one of the last facets of graduating into adulthood that I am truly resisting. I still stubbornly refuse to admit the fact that everyone is probably going to stay where they are--or, if not that, then that they are probably going to move to where the work is, which chances are is going to be nowhere near myself.
My usual recourse to get myself out of this line of anxious ponderance is to throw myself headlong into my writing (which I perceive to be my "passion"), but that just puts me into the anxiety cycle illustrated above.
Maybe I just need to deal with this anxiousness until spring break, when I will be able to spend some time with friends and these thought cycles will abate. Maybe spring break will only make them more acute.
I have a very hard time imagining that I will grow out of my fervent desire to once more share my life with those who have made it so wonderful in the past. And yet, if I'm truthful with myself, there are a number of other ways in which my thinking has become more "adult" over the past few years which I previously had a difficult time envisioning.
Oh well. Life goes on.
Lots of little things have happened in the interim. Worked a Saturday, attended the Pancake Breakfast and feasted on delicious flapjacks, consequently didn't have much of a weekend. Been working through making edits on The Silence, though I'm only 2/3 of the way through in red pen and a little more than half that in actual edits to the electronic version.
I am feeling more stressed now that it's completed than I did beforehand, because the pressure to work on it is actually more acute. Here's a breakdown of my thought process:
Oh lord, this is never going to get published. No matter how good it might be, the odds are small, and it's only so good!
Nonsense-- of course it will get published, you just need to make the effort.
I don't have time to make the effort! Etc. etc.
Every six months or so I have these conversations with my mother in which she attempts to assuage my anxiety about being so far from most of my friends by telling me that "friends change," and that this is a transition that I am going to make mentally within the next few years. She suggests that the emotional space once filled by my boon companions will one day be occupied by my children.
If this is a natural outcome of growing up, it is one of the last facets of graduating into adulthood that I am truly resisting. I still stubbornly refuse to admit the fact that everyone is probably going to stay where they are--or, if not that, then that they are probably going to move to where the work is, which chances are is going to be nowhere near myself.
My usual recourse to get myself out of this line of anxious ponderance is to throw myself headlong into my writing (which I perceive to be my "passion"), but that just puts me into the anxiety cycle illustrated above.
Maybe I just need to deal with this anxiousness until spring break, when I will be able to spend some time with friends and these thought cycles will abate. Maybe spring break will only make them more acute.
I have a very hard time imagining that I will grow out of my fervent desire to once more share my life with those who have made it so wonderful in the past. And yet, if I'm truthful with myself, there are a number of other ways in which my thinking has become more "adult" over the past few years which I previously had a difficult time envisioning.
Oh well. Life goes on.
posted by Nate at 11:10 AM
7 Comments:
I had a dream last night that I was in some school hallway that wasn't at all similar to the hallways I've frequented in my past schools. Anyway, I was just standing in front of some door, happen to glance to my left, and there you are strolling down the hall in your black coat and jeans and ruffly brown hair and glasses. I switched to another dream just as we hugged and were saying "Hey! Long time no see."
What this means is that somehow there must be a visit in the relatively near future. :o)
With respect to your mom, I have to disagree. I think that, while a decent amount of sparing-down is inevitable when you're not surrounded by tons of folk 24/7, there are plenty of adults I know who still keep in excellent touch with their friends from college/high school/whenever. Much of the time it's a more select group; however, that doesn't exclude grabbing a drink with a pal while visiting New Orleans/LA/Wherever. I know that my parents' friends are mostly work or family-related, but I also know that their college and high school experiences were quite different from mine. One has the choice to keep in touch or not, and I think that choice is much easier if you didn't form bonds that were especially strong at those earlier times in your life. It's true people change, and it's also true you can't spend every moment with them re-living those golden years (or else it will just go stale) - you have to form new memories with new experiences. I respect my parents very much as adults, but the fact (for example) that they were unable to give me any real advice on romance/dating/whatever made me realize - wait a sec! Not only are they not gay, they also hardly dated anybody else (and certainly not in the style folks today do) before becoming exclusive. They're wise, but they're people too, people who are just as likely as anyone young or old to view their personal experiences as the norm for all time. Just like being an adolescent meant something different for us than them, being an adult is what we make of it, not some pre-formed thing into which we step. And yes, I know I'm biased because I'm your friend and I detest distancing. But still.
Also, one big thing that basically no-one else has had at their disposal.
Tha Intraweb.
By which I mean, while we may live in different cities,
we all live in the same cyberspace
Anton makes a good point as well---"becoming an adult" is not a set process, it is a series of choices. One can choose to get a mortage, or one can choose to buy a sailboat. One can choose to become a doctor, or choose to become a lawyer. That's the fun part of being out of college, right? Nothing is pre-determined. We now literally have the choice to do whatever we want with our lives/friends/occupations/loves/passions. Things will be different, certainly---but we get to decide how they are different. Saying "this is how adulthood goes" is a choice, rather than an inevitability.
Then again, that's just my opinion. Or maybe...my choice? Hoo hah hah hah hah haa.....
This is all good advice, and I thank you guys for it.
Anton especially-- Your argument is the one I continually make to myself, and I just pray that you (and that perspective in my mind) are entirely correct.
I was having similar thoughts today as I was walking home from the grocery store. Terrell had just told me that she had gotten a job in DC next year at the tax court, and I was happy for her because she hates City Year. But then I realized that so often friendships become to a large extent a "count-down" to when you have to be once again be apart from that friend. Graduation, and then, it seems to an extent, each calendar year ....
Friends are so important to me that it almost seems a shame that with good friendships seldom comes any thoughts of commitment akin to romatic relationship.
Why doesn't "together forever" have the same weight?
I guess, as always, the answer has something to do with sex.
But still, sometimes I think Heaven is a place where all my friends are in the same place.
As expected, I agree completment with Anton, as is my habit because I crave his love. But I'll cite friends as the key difference here, rather than the times or his parents' advice, which has always worked for me (his parent's advice, not mine).
The great stereotype is that every group of friends when they graduate says we'll be BFF and within three years the only person you talk to anymore is Steve from Accounting. While this is no knock against Steve, attention should be paid. Some of us will fall apart. I know I could care less if Gardner is dead in a gutter somewhere, and I've made peace with that. The important thing is, at the advent of this new chapter in our lives, putting in the effort with the people you know you don't want to drift apart from. It's an easy trap, and one I know I've fallen into, of saying that old friends and things will still be there when you need them, and to a certain extent it is true, but it's also true that people change. And you can either be there with them during those changes, and strengthen your friendships through them, or you can wake up one morning to realize that one of us has been a Senegalese rebel leader for, like, six months now.
Also, as dead in a gutter said, we have a plethora of media to keep in touch. All we require is the desire to do so, and five minutes we can set aside for that.
Long story short:
Call Me! Kisses.
I think I might start going by that.
Or maybe an acronym?
DIAG?
D.i.a.G.?
Hawt.
-Jeff "Dead-in-a-Gutter" Gardner
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