Timely Extradition

After what understandably appeared to be the complete disappearance of me, I return. For the most part. If you can call it that. My life? Oh, no, I couldn't bore you with that.

Oh, well, if you insist.

I've been in summer sessions and working all day every day, which could possibly explain my notable absence. Class at 10am followed immediately by 6 - 8 hours of work a day really seems to tax one more than originally planned. I'm enjoying it, for the most part, though. My job is one I can actually put on a resume, and though it is on the low end of the totem pole, I fully believe that the work I and those below me are doing is worthwhile and will do good for the community in the long haul. It's slightly difficult to explain what I do, but I am a Triennial School Census Team Leader (in title), and I manage four to six census interviewers every day as we cover every square mile of Chesterfield County and the City of Richmond. We go door-to-door, but only to addresses that have not responded to the federally-mandated public school census, and fill out the information manually if we are responded to. It's long, it's arduous, the pay is surprisingly good, and I work with a bunch of VCU and other university kids I might or might not have ever gotten to meet otherwise.

I attended Capital Pride 2008 a few weeks ago and had a complete blast spending time with high school friends and staying at my family's place in A-Town. I realize more and more how much I miss the city that bred and raised me every time I visit, but when I come home to Richmond I always see new things that I didn't appreciate about it before. I definitely couldn't see myself making a life here or staying here long if at all after undergrad, but it's not a terrible place and I think it'll be somewhere that I will fondly remember.

I leave this entry slightly open, so as I have somewhere to pick up for the next one, or at least to give me some ideas. People are complicated, and I am seeing that no matter how hard you try to understand people or their behaviors, sometimes you just can't. Ever. It's frustrating as hell, but it's a fact of life and I think it's one that makes being individuals so awesome. Agonizing, yes. But awesome.

Until next time.

Quick Time-Out

I'm seriously failing at updating, and I realize. There will be more, and hopefully in more detail, in the coming days.

Sleep doesn't even come anymore. I'm depressed, and I don't know why. For once, all the pieces in life have fallen close to one another and all I have to do is give them the littlest touches to put them into place.

So why can't I?

It's eating me up, and it's making her miserable. I'm so scared to push her away. "The best thing to ever happen to me" feels so inadequate to describe this woman in my life. I have no idea what to do, but I will be damned if something like this comes between us and pushes her away.

I have to woman up and grow a pair, and learn how to bottle up my feelings again. It's time to stop letting them be something in life for a while. It's time to get back into gear.

Back At Ya

You are a Social Liberal (76% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (35% permissive) You are best described as a: Democrat (35e/76s) Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

I can't believe I'm dating a socialist wannabe. *shudder*

She Said, She Said, She Said

Yet another step in the direction towards spending the rest of my life with this unstoppable force that blew into my life and I hope to God doesn't leave any time soon.

I have this collection of still frames reeling behind my eyelids when I lie in bed, and they bleed into each other as I drift off to sleep. I see her eyes, first thing in the morning when I roll over and she's sleeping heavily; I kiss her forehead and they open slowly, a smile creeping across her face. I know she has no idea that they're are lighter than the sunlight streaming through the slits in the curtains.

I have a tendency towards recurring dreams. Last night I dreamt of the future, or perhaps just what I wish it will be...

I awake in the mornings with a curious sense of hope, as if even if the day itself ends up being less than satisfactory, it's just one more on the way to something so much more.

No Pain, No Gain, So They Say

University is a wonderful, twisted, fucked-up little gem of a thing, really. You meet the people you want in your wedding party, and you meet the people you hope to God never even think about procreating. You meet rapists, artists, sexists, future dentists, and everything in between. You see hundreds of faces you may or may not ever see again, all drifting by as the frigid wind whips hats in the air and hair in their faces.

I come to ask myself why we behave the way we do around one another now that we're "adults" - or so we say. I suppose, at least, people paying rent for apartments and not eating mom's spaghetti for dinner every night. The definition of adult only ever gets more subjective lately.

One would think that we'd moved past hating people for differences, for things we don't understand about them. One would think we could put aside our shortcomings and come together for fifty-minutes-three-times-a-week and learn a thing or two about the other six billion carbon life forms wandering around the planet.

Sadly, I find myself sometimes mistaken. And for some strange reason, it still gets under my skin in just the right ways that even though people twice my age and ten times my experience think I'm the best thing to walk out of a higher learning institution, people my own age would much rather stare and whisper to themselves than come and talk to me face-to-face like what I'd imagine a respectable adult would.

I'm not comparing my current situation to high school, as I did that at my old university and it was much more fitting there than it is here. I suppose I'm just pointing out the subtle ways in which, as much as we love to call ourselves grown up and blowing away...some of those people? I don't see them moving any way at all.

One Step Forward, Two Steps --

The first day of spring semester fast approaches, and as I sit here and write this, my new roommate is arranging her furniture and putting her clothes in the shelves her family heaved in earlier this morning.

This is yet another new chapter in my life. I find myself on a new roller coaster, but the kind where I don't worry about falling out; the first one where I don't feel like I never strapped in.

I feel stable and almost comfortable. I never want to feel completely safe and comfortable, though, because I fear that that will mean I've stopped moving and progressing in my life. But I am happy, and that's new and kind of tingles when I quiet everything around me and have a moment to myself. I suppose meditating more and all the self-introspection has been having an effect on that, as well.

Having a significant other who supports me and loves me like mine does also really helps. She's more than I deserve.

I think that this whole notion will define my self-motto for this semester and new chapter in life: "Spring 2008: Strapped In."

Qualifiers and Modifiers

For some, no matter how hard they try and no matter what they accomplish, nothing seems like enough.

I feel betrayed by my university. It's kind of stupid, really. I just wish maybe they'd care enough not to make me take classes that will further enhance my penchant towards mid-semester depression plummets.

I digress.

I find myself making schedules, counting days, making plans, hoping, wishing - wishing I knew how to pray, even? - just to keep my feet on the ground. The distance will be hard, I have no doubt. Distance always is. But we have lives apart from each other and that is something that I cannot and will not allow to be altered. Maybe I was spoiled by seeing her so much over break, as she mentioned she herself was, but I like to think I have more self-control than that. I won't up and jump on a Greyhound to Chapel Hill at midnight on a Wednesday night because I can't stand sleeping in a bed alone, without her.

I do see myself possibly sinking into CNU mode this semester around. I can't lie about it; there's no use. I'm not fooling myself or anyone around me by saying otherwise. The schedule I have and my tendency to slip into depression when isolated from friends and loved ones together bodes for nothing all-too-appetizing.

I'm hoping I do better for myself this time around, though. I think I'll be able to, with the right balance of getting out of my apartment, being with people, working out until I can't walk/see straight, and possibly even eating more than four or five times a week.

So I raise my glass (okay - it's a can of diet Dr. Pepper. At least I'm drinking the overachiever of the titular sodas) to me. Cheers to finishing my second year of university with as much fire and delicious chaos with which I started.