As you may have deduced from the state of my blog . . .
tumbleweeds . . . this has not exactly been a good few months for me. I’ve been
trying and trying to put this into words, and I may never succeed fully, or
make anyone understand.
Have you ever arrived in a place in your life and felt like
nothing fit? Like everything in the world around you disagreed with you? It’s a
scary feeling, especially when you think you were the one who crafted this life
for yourself.
To put it more specifically, imagine the early college years
of your life as time spent carefully crafting a suit for the life you want to
live. The later years are where you put on the suit and begin work on building
everything else. With me so far?
This year, I walked into the semester with a little less
weight on my back - fresh off the loss of the relationship I had convinced
myself would just be good enough for the rest of my life; I pulled on my suit,
the suit I had been tailoring for myself for two years. It fit well enough -
like everything else it would be good enough, and so I went on my way, hoping
that I would find that my relationship was the only thing that was amiss in my
life.
But as the days and weeks wore on, I began to realize that
there were many things about this suit that were not right. The cut was tight,
the details stuffy - and it was made of rubber. The basic form was what I
wanted, but somewhere along the way I had begun making a scuba suit without
realizing it - What was supposed to be light, airy, beautiful, classy, and
quirky was instead constricting, hot, cheap and tacky. I didn’t know how to
continue with this thing I had created, but I knew I had to, so I faked it.
Every morning I had to struggle to leave my room, seeing
everyone else flowing by comfortably in their world while I couldn’t quite
explain why my world was so difficult to navigate. Everything from my clothing
selection to my choice of beverage with lunch to which study playlist I was
going to listen to became a conundrum, an imponderable impossibility.
At a loss, I gave up on choosing a path and latched on to
someone who is very close to me, but is notoriously unstable. She decided our
weekend plans, where we ate and with whom, how often we drank, and dragged me
along with her while she did a lot of things I disagreed with, but didn’t have
the heart to argue about - if I lost her, who would I have? And once I slunk
back at night, alone in my room at last, I would seek the things that I thought
I wanted, disappear into TV shows, fandoms, and the internet. I thought maybe
here I could find a place where I could fit for a while. But nothing felt
right, the smiles and laughs were precious but fleeting. I felt - not empty,
but lost within my own mind, like every fiber of my being was a betrayal to my
true self.
Obviously, a lack of ability to choose is not the most
convenient problem to have if you are an English and Philosophy major, and your
grades depend on your ability to create and defend an argument. I stopped
turning assignments in, doing just enough to get by, and avoiding eye contact
with my professors. I just couldn’t write, and I was embarrassed. I hated
myself for who I had become. I hated myself more than I have ever hated anyone
or anything before. I knew I was intelligent, brilliant even at times, but I
didn’t know how to be intelligent
- how to be me.
I spent a lot of time over the break trying to figure out
just who the hell this Sammi girl really is … And I know that she has
absolutely nothing to do with the person from last semester. Sammi is not a hot
mess every weekend. Sammi does not compromise her morals, the law, and
everything she loves for one friend. Sammi does not lock herself in her room
and pretend to be asleep just to avoid contact with people … well, not often
anyway. Most of all, Sammi is happy.
Sammi is positive and likes being around people. Sammi is goofy and quirky and
a total dork, but doesn’t completely lack social graces. Sammi doesn’t cry
herself to sleep every night or try to come up with reasons to move back in
with her parents. All I know is that I can’t survive without Sammi - the real
Sammi.
This semester, I will have to work harder than I ever have
to prove myself. I will have to cut ties with the person who I have been
calling my best friend, but who I have been misleading in order to please for
three years. I have a lot of work to do before I’ll be Sammi again, but I hope
that when the dust clears, she’ll be there, and I can finally start to make a
suit that will really fit her.
I just wanted to share this with you guys. Thanks for
reading.
