i've said too many times in the past few days, "this is the first time in my life that i've ever wanted to do what's comfortable." it's true on a lot of levels. this is not to say that everything i want to do right now is the easy thing--and that's part of what's causing me problems with the statement.
This--the This that is so foremost in my life right now that to acknowledge it would probably make you nervous--will not be easy. nor do i want it to be: it's part of that not usually wanting to do what's comfortable thing. [i feel like you will read this and be convinced that i'm doing something wrong.]
the bigger question, it seems, or at least the one it seems like most people think should be bigger--it is comprised of all the other questions, after all--is: should i stay or should i go? is now a good time to uproot myself again, start over from scratch, try to make myself fit into a new city?
i am extremely unmotivated to do this.
the short version:
grad school applications are out to three cities: the one i live in now, one where i have (extended) family close by, and one where i know no one. we could probably draw up extensive pro/con lists for each. i want to stay where i am. i know people here, i know the department i'd be going into (academic incest is on the con list), i know the city. and i love this city.
i had a conversation last night on losing, and potentially re-finding, that sense of home. it's an elusive thing, really. my parents' house hasn't been home for me since i was 14 or 15, although i'm not uncomfortable there [anymore]. dorms, particularly the one i lived in freshman year, are really hard to call home in any sense. i got close with my junior year on-campus apartment, where i had my own room and a window, and i've been close with my current apartment until recently. i was much closer over the summer. but my home feeling, at the rare times i have it, tends to be connected more with a person than with a place. why would i move hundreds of miles away from the people who have been much like home to me, from those who are becoming more like it every day? furthermore, why would i leave the city that has been more like a home than any place i have ever lived?
in that sense, i want to do what is comfortable. i want to stay in the city i know, with people i know, and a bus system i know.
in another sense, i wonder if this would really be all that comfortable. academically, maybe i'd find a better fit elsewhere. maybe i'm scared to look; maybe i don't know how. maybe i'll find that once my academic life changes, my personal relationships will also change, and i will no longer be able to find that home i'm creating. wouldn't it be so much worse to think i was staying in the same place, but find it instead completely different? i suppose there's no way to predict this, but i have a weird feeling about it.
i've already decided that wherever i end up, i need to live in an apartment by myself. this will be more comfortable in some ways, but less so in others. my ideal living situation is to be on the same block as a few good friends, but have space that is only my own. i need to have people around, but i also need solitude. finding the balance can be tricky, and i think it would be easier if i stayed here, where i don't need to find the people too. i'll go crazy if left by myself for too long, and for as outgoing as people tell me i appear, i'm actually quite shy and have a hard time making friends.
i've never been one to take the easy way out. i never want to choose the easy way simply because it's easy. i'm an overachiever and a procrastinator; i had to tell myself firmly to stop adding commitments to my life when i ran out of free time, and then i had to remind myself constantly for quite a while. generally speaking, i would rather be in a queer relationship than a straight one, for any number of reasons, and you can say anything you'd like about that. i don't want to give up when i don't know what to do, even if i don't even know how to figure it out.
the part i am avoiding is doing what is easy in relationships. this post is long enough already, and i'm not entirely sure what would be appropriate, for the topic or the forum.
2 comments:
I don't understand much of your post, and I'm not sure I'm supposed to, but if there is one thing I do understand, it is that of searching for a place to call home. A place where you belong. I have called several communities "home", but the one that I use as my reference and the one to which I will eventually return is the one where everything fit just right. I was comfortable. Sure, I struggled to get there, but once I overcame those struggles, I enjoyed the comfort that community offered me.
So I wonder: are you confusing the "comfortable" or "easy" choice with the one that feels right? There's no need to make your life harder than it already is. There's a difference between striving for a worthy goal--one that is difficult to achieve but will bring you closer to happiness--and striving for no reason other than to avoid the "easy" option. If there is nothing to be gained by attainment of the "more difficult" goal or nothing to be learned along the path toward that goal, then why do it? What's the point?
~B.
I couldn't have said this better myself, B.
Yes, sometimes the easy thing to do is the right thing to do. While pushing yourself academically is always worthy of praise, there is something different to be said about pushing yourself in other senses. Sometimes you just can't push yourself any more when it comes to things like your body and soul. Your soul, though the least tangible of the aforementioned entities, is definitely more important in my opinion, though the relationship among the three cannot be denied.
So, you have your body pretty much taken care of. Your mind is always going to be up to it no matter where you choose to go. But what about your soul? Are you willing to sacrifice what makes you as a person in order to satisfy a lesser element of this triad? Or is this sacrifice of self merely for those who will someday glance down at a piece of paper with your name at the top of it?
I know that my grades and extracurricular activities/experience could get me into any school in this country, and I'd venture to say that I could go to some of those fancy ass schools over in Europe, but that doesn't mean that I want to go to all of them. Just because I have the grades for Harvard doesn't mean I'll fit in there or like the place at all.
It took me a long time to realize that being recognized as smart is not the only thing that makes me happy. In fact, it's not even close to being in the top of those things that do.
I know that the big question for you is whether or not leaving Pittsburgh is worth it. I really can't try to influence you either way. I don't want to do that. I want you to make this decision for yourself, and I want you to feel that you have made the right one. I can only tell you what I would think about (and indeed have to start thinking about) in making such a decision.
So, is it worth it? What's a place called "home" worth to you? What's that feeling you get when you walk outside and feel like its YOUR city that you're standing in? What's it worth to be able to walk down the street and cry on the shoulder of someone who has known you and been able to comfort you in times past?
It sucks that we have to choose. I know. You wonder whether or not you can find these same things in a new place--whether or not you can have that same feeling of being home anywhere else. You wonder if you'll ever be as close to anyone else as those you met in undergrad, and you wonder even more how your relationships with those people are going to change now that you've gone to a new place. It's scary, and you have a right to freak out.
I think you know the right thing to do in your heart. I think you have a gut feeling that is telling you what you need to do for yourself, but I think your head is telling you what you need to do for everyone else or what you are expected to do. People who say that you always have to put your life on hold for academics or career scare me. They put their lives on hold all the time. They put off living up until the day they die. I refuse to be one of those people.
I can be this way and still move away from Pittsburgh. That's because I know that I will do everything that I possibly can to come back here whenever I can, and I know that I will stay in touch with those who are important to me. I know that I can do this kind of thing because of my brother (yeah, like that was a surprise). He's been so far away from me for so long, and I'm closer to him now than I have ever been. Closeness has nothing to do with actual distance. It's all about a shared mindset. Anyway, I've been prepared for this sort of thing. I know what it's like to be separated from people that seemed closer than my own limbs. I know how it hurts. I know how it can be scary. But what I have learned is that nothing really has to change. You may not see the same people every day, but you can still talk all the time. Writing letters is really fun.
But not everyone can do this sort of thing, and it might be quite difficult to handle on top of tougher courses and a whole new place. I'm not sure how it would be for you. Only you know what is right in this case. I have a little bit of a feeling that I should be somewhere else. And I'm going with that for now. I need to go to the other places to know for sure. But you are the only one who can decide that a city or atmosphere is right for you, and you are the only one who can determine how much having a comfortable place and a close network of friends means at this point in your life.
This may or may not have helped. I wish I could just tell you what to do, but then I'd have to read your mind, and I don't know if I'm up for that ;)
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