Unity Crying and Another U Word

So a few weeks ago I had this terrible day. I don't remember everything that made it terrible, but I do remember it culminating in a meeting with one of my professors to try and figure out what was going on in class. It's a very confusing class and, for whatever reason, this professor and I have a very difficult time communicating. Every conversation I have with him goes a bit like,

"What?"
"Huh?"
"No. Wait. No. What?"
"What?"

Anyway. I walked out of the meeting feeling really unhappy and I thought, in what seemed like a very rational manner at the time, You know what? I just need to cry. If I cry I will feel better and I will be happy.

I should clarify here that I cry a lot and I'm just going to blame it on chemistry. I just have to cry once a week about anything--commercials, stubbed toes, burned eggs, really bad chick flicks. If I can cry about something small then I don't get emotionally out of whack. So I cry and then I feel better. This is a thing, and it's fine.

Anyway, I was on the fourth floor which is where the English department is located and I know a lot of people in the English department, so I walked really quickly to the bathroom so I wouldn't have to talk to anyone I knew while in the almost-crying state.

Which, by the way, like the almost-throwing-up state, is the worst part of the whole process.

Mercifully, I made it to the bathroom and sat down in the stall and started crying. And after a while I was pretty sure that the person in the stall next to me was also crying. Because we were both just sitting there and all I heard was an occasional sniff.

And I sat there thinking about how nice this was, what good cohesion and unity it had. Because I was crying and they were crying and we got to cry by ourselves but also together, which has to be the perfect way to cry, right? Everyone should get to cry with someone else without having to actually see that person/feel obligated to offer any sort of comfort.

After a few minutes I've cried and I'm good and I'm done. And I get up to go and splash some water on my face and that's when I notice--there is a urinal in the bathroom.

Repeat: There is a urinal in this bathroom.

So I sprint out the door and down the hall and only then do I stop and make sure that no one is behind me, no one saw that. My boss isn't standing at the drinking fountain next to the door. My professor I can't communicate with is not standing there wondering why I'm running.

And then I start laughing.

Anxiously Engaged

So I tried a new thing with New Years Resolutions this year. The new thing is that I actually have one.

This year I want to be "anxiously engaged."  I think this may be a Mormon term--I mean that I want to be active, out, doing things, interacting, participating.

It kind of terrifies me.

I have this ridiculously long list of things that I should be doing. Know what I should be doing?

Trying to stop the last of my Chinese from slipping through my fingers and into the abyss from which it will never be recovered.

Regularly going to the meetings for a school journal I joined last semester.

Talking to all of my teachers from last semester and letting them know that I think they're fantastic and I want them to hire me. For anything. Like, maybe dusting.

Volunteering at my school's radio station, so that I can muster up the courage to apply for a This American Life internship. Because even just applying for that would make me cooler.

Doing yoga. Writing consistently. Spending at least two hours on every one hour in class. Actually going to the majority of the church activities. Going to the swing club on Saturday nights. Getting my printer fixed. Publishing a paper in a school journal. Possibly sending that paper to a conference. Publishing something (yes, anything) in an online magazine. Learning how to whistle with my fingers and play the guitar and the harmonica. Getting a job. Talking to my professors. Talking to people.

I look at this list, sometimes even one thing on this list (hello, This American Life application. And Chinese), and I want to crawl under my comforter and hibernate through the Winter. And possibly the rest of my college experience. Resign myself to mediocrity (or whatever is right below that), and just let it go. Read a few good books, listen to some bad pop music.

Yesterday I called my mom. I hadn't realized it before I talked to her, but I was freaking out.

She suggested I drop the "anxiously" from my goal.

Excuse the Bad Grammer, I Didn't Edit Because I Don't Care

I've had a number of blogging freak outs, of various sizes. Perhaps most notably was my first day home sick post. That was a terrible day. I went to class and fought back tears, and then I went home and let them loose. I was so home sick that the sight of 808--the area code from home--made me tear up.

I sat on my bed for a full day, thinking how most of the people who loved weren't even on the same continent as me. And I cried. It has only recently occurred to me how uncomfortable that must have been for the apartment next door. After all, you can hear everything through those walls, and I was sobbing for hours. Part of me feels bad for them. Part of me thinks that they should have knocked on my door and brought me cookies and made sure I was OK.

I haven't been home sick like that for a few months now. I've missed home, but I've been happy. Home sickness became an ache for hugs or a craving for salad, instead of lung crushing sobs.

Until today. Today I went to print off my itinerary and found out that I'm not actually going to be home tonight at 9:30. Nope. At 9:30 I'll still be in Utah. I don't catch my flight home until 3:18 Monday.

A few days ago, when I was desperately studying for astronomy, I looked online and saw that one of my final grades, which was a 99% when I walked out of the testing center, was and 82%. I freaked out. Really. My cousins were unsure how to handle me. I went through every possible scenario, sent an email to my TA and called every friend I had in the class. After about forty-five minutes of panicking a friend explained what had happened and how everything was OK, and I was fine again.

Today was so much worse.

Two days. Forty eight hours. Two thousand eight hundred and eighty minutes. That's how much time I no longer get to spend at home. It feels stolen.

It's been about two hours. My face is stiff with salt, the impatient airline lady assured me it was my fault, my head feels pounded and it is time for me to get out of bed and figure out how to be happy again.

The funny thing is, if I'd always known that I was leaving Monday, today would be a great day. I'd hang with cousins and there would only be two days left until I got home! Just two! Days! Not counting down my months anymore--actual days. But now that's two days that I'm not home.

I've read about so many writers who speak about writing as a compulsion. It's something that they have to do. I remember one woman saying that she had to write everything, otherwise it seemed like it never really happened. It's funny how, in a certain way, we can only experience through words. Any shape we give to the world around us comes through consonants and vowels. That's why, when I was done talking to my parents and done crying, I pulled out my laptop and wrote to you.

What good therapy you are.

Rambling

Do you remember that Christmas story? About oranges.

That one. The one with the little girl (was she an orphan?) who got one orange a year, and she always looked forward to it--its roundness, its smell, the way the peel broke open and juice squirted out. Every time I ever read that story I suddenly desperately wanted an orange. But no orange I got ever tasted as good as hers.

Last night I had an orange that was as good as the orphan girl's. I hadn't had an orange in six months. They're expensive at the grocery store I shop at, and they always look ill. So I opt for the apples in a stand across the street instead.

But I am now at my aunt's--an actual house with people are not college students, more food than is needed for a week, a fireplace, and a beautiful piano with accompanying sheet music. And oranges. Orange Christmas bulbs in a glass bowl on the counter. I've had one and a half. And I've been here less than twenty four hours.

Am I pathetic?

Don't answer that.

It feels so good to be away from college. Yesterday, at three o'clock (ish) I finished my last final.

My Book of Mormon teacher told my class that when we finished our last final we wouldn't care if we passed or not. We would be delirious with joy. We'd dance down the street, singing, and laughing maniacally. My Book of Mormon teacher lied. I'm still waiting for the delirium, Brother Merrell.

When I walked out of the testing center for the last time I called my mom and consoled myself by spending money and gaining unneeded calories because the (over) twelve hours of studying I devoted to studying for Astronomy did not earn me an A. It's one of the only times I can think of that I gave something everything I had and didn't get what I wanted back. That probably sounds prideful but think about it--How often do you give something everything you have? How many things do you actually do to your utmost capacity? How many times do you work so hard that you literally do know what more you could have done? Not very often, right? Or is that just me?

To do something the very best you can, and then for that not to be good enough... I hate that feeling.

My dad says this is very good for me. I believe him. That doesn't stop me from hating it. In any case, I've had a talk with my four-point-oh and informed it since I know it's going to break up with me when fall semester grades come out I need some emotional distance.

I should have known from the beginning. GPA's like that will only love you and leave you--when you are me, anyway.

It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter it doesn't matter it doesn't matter. Itdoesn'tmatterdoesn'tmatterdoesn'tmatter. It's just a letter. Just a letter.


I wonder if this is what I'm going to be like after a break up? Because that would really stink for my roommates. I hope I go more All-American Reject than Taylor Swift, but who knows. Maybe I'll sit in a corner and cry instead of jumping up and down and screaming to vengeful music.

Man. I started this post with oranges and now I'm hypothesizing about future break ups. I worry about me sometimes. Definitely time for a subject change.

I will be home tomorrow night. Where Christmas is green and bright, and the sun will shine all day and all the stars at night. I can see myself standing outside of the airport, my red suitcase on the ground next to me and my backpack on my back. Eleven hours of traveling behind me. Warm, wet air around me. My family will be late (because they're my family) but when they get there they'll all jump out of the car and give me hugs. I have missed their hugs.

I have this feeling it will be ten o'clock and we'll be driving through the pineapple fields, and Prairie Home Companion will be just going off the air, and I'll the see ocean rising over Haleiwa...

And I'll completely forget that the last six months have happened.