If you don’t mind me explaining, this is a sort of stream of consciousness (with some editing). I can’t really find myself or my mind amongst the anxiety and existence right now, so this is my mind as it is in this moment. 

I have always asked for a fresh start. Everyone has at some point, right? That’s what college is supposed to be. A way to meet new people. A way to meet yourself.

When I got here, I figured I needed to give it time (and this is still my rationality), needed to let my pattern fall into place and give in to “the college experience.” I’m not quite sure what that means to you, but it never meant parties or drugs or anything remotely “fun” to me, and it still doesn’t. But it meant a new place where no one knew my name or my life and I could become the person I had always wanted to be.

I’m not sure about finding myself, but there has been a lot of tears. For my entire life, I have been told by everyone—parents, friends, movies, books—that you always have a choice. I’m not so much questioning that on staying or leaving, but more so having a choice about who I am. What if I was created the way that I am and that’s it—-no room for adjustment, no room for growth? What if the way that I left high school is the way I will be forever?

Subconsciously, I know that this isn’t true and, in fact, I’ll probably grow the most in these next few years, but

I don’t feel like I exist. 

I am trapped in a clock, hands frozen on 4:32 am, a cup of coffee steaming on my desk and my brain frantically begging my heart to create something in the heat of the moment. Creation is my only way out, both literally and figuratively. But how do I create?

That’s all my mind comes up with now. Questions. A long list of questions left unanswered, reasoning that I will answer them at a later date or that life will answer them for me.

-how do I deal with a bed bug problem?

-how long can I go without cleaning my fork?

-who do I talk to if I feel like I’m gonna explode?

-what do I do if I walk in on my roommate having sex?

-if I go up and hug someone, will they hug me back?

-how do I go on?

The list just keeps going and it only gets worse, and instead of answering them, I open my laptop and stare at the work I should be doing, only to open the Netflix tab five minutes later and waste my life rewatching Once Upon A Time.

Speaking of wasting my life, the biggest thing college has taught me is that that is actually my biggest rational fear. What if I am wasting my young years? People really aren’t kidding when they say youth is wasted on the young. I fear my body only has a shelf life of so long and my mind can’t stay still. Why aren’t I in the alps, writing memoirs and making friends with sheep? Why aren’t I working at a vegan bakery and becoming a bestselling novelist? One of my favorite movies is The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty (the old one is amazing but I love the new one). He leaves. He goes out and he has adventures and they change him and he becomes the man he has always wanted to be. I want to be him. I want to skateboard down a mountain, rocks strapped to my hands, chasing a wild photographer. I want to jump onto the back of a helicopter and eat pound cake.

I want to be me. BUT WHO AM I?

With so many options, you’d think I’d be able to settle right? And I sort of have, but she just doesn’t know she’s me yet. I have to give her time.

Time

time

why can’t there be more of it?

 

-Alexandra