Dad came today and helped me move 2/3 of my stuff. I forgot how much I love being around him...we have more in common than I thought in high school. In a way, we've both gone through similar life-changing experiences within the past two years. He finally quit his computer-related job, a source of great unhappiness and frustration, and took on something that more suits his free spirit: truck-driving. He stopped doing what he thought he should be doing and did what he wanted to do...but it was a long process of finding that. College did the same thing to me...heck, I found an old college application essay to UNC with my "professional statement" on it and laughed for a long time. It was a sad laughter, since I was so trapped then...pursuing what I thought I should do (science, pre-med) instead of finding my true desires. I guess that's just a long process, though...I was so tied up in Westmonsterland and family legacies and what not that I wasn't able to explore my real interests. Pastor Byron expressed to me on Tuesday his awe over how much I've blossomed this past year, for lack of better terminology. I've discovered my artistic side here, something that I used to cultivate when I was eight years old and writing crazy short-stories. And then there's the relational realm...a brand new conception for me. And now...I can't imagine a life without photography. Or people. I feel like it's always been a part of me...and maybe it has. I was still a photographer in high school...I just didn't have the equipment. At any rate, I've been freed from my enslavement to academic perfectionism, in God's grace, in coming to Chapel Hill. And I can't really put a finger on when the transition started. It was so gradual...mostly ignited by Chile in June 2006.
Anyways, Dad and I are both free-spirits, I suppose. Prone to wandering and longing to break past the boundaries of scheduled monotony. We both like traveling...the highs that come from seeing new places and meeting new people and then the periods of solitary reflection before returning home. He admitted to me that North Carolina/Wake Forest doesn't feel like "home" for him. He said, "My home is on the road." That's exactly how I feel. Chapel Hill is, admittedly, becoming more of a home. But my real home is out there...out in the world...whether that be on the drive to St. Louis as I pass through the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains and sing Regina Spektor in my car, or on a chiva in Panama with my new friend Olmedo and an old gringo friend beside me, or in a new area: a Cherokee reservation in the Smokies, up north with my sister at an Ivy, out west. I really can't imagine settling down and still don't know if what it's what I really want. I want marriage, I want to learn how to love someone other than myself...but I don't want the suburban package that typically accompanies it. I guess I need to find another wanderer like myself.
Anyways, I'd love to go with Dad on one of his trips. I want him to get a trip out to the Grand Canyon, or Montanta, or Idaho. He said it's not likely unless he transfers to a new company, but oh man...how unforgettable that would be. Me and Dad on the road. Speaking of roads, I need to read On the Road. Carolyn said it's good...and I know it's one of Jules' obsessions. Thank goodness for summer...reading.
I'm sad that the semester/year is coming to a close. I've had so many positive experiences these past nine months...I've made so many unlikely new friends, learned important life-lessons, messed up a good number of times but have grown from it.
I like the rainy Saturday-afternoon mood. It's a good thinking/writing atmosphere. I like peeking out my window in the dorm and watching families take pictures at the Old Well. I think it's a visual that I'm going to miss from sophomore year.
Yelling out my window to RUFers as they convened there for a scavenger hunt in the fall, screaming in ecstasy with Carolyn the first day we moved in and saw our spectacular view, seeing the first snow over the Well in January and taking pictures from my lofted bed,
photographing Carolyn and her friends there in the closing weeks of school, with pink flowers in full bloom.
And just talking on the phone at midnight in that general area. Gah...yeah, I'm going to miss the Old Well "experience," since there's not a specific memory that sums it all up.
Well, I think I'll be on my way to Caribou to start this paper.
I'll leave you with a good refrain that's playing on my computer, and it's a pretty sound:
"Walking out in the freezing rain, I feel nothing because I've numbed the pain. I'm looking forward to looking back on this day." ~Over the Rhine
2 comments:
Dear Courtney, you have blossomed so much. I agree. At least, you sound so much happier. It was maybe worth the struggle, then, to not settle for the first thing that you thought you wanted to pursue? You had the freedom, and the willingness to keep questioning, to find what you really love.
I'm somewhat jealous of you that you're done with your year. Congratulations. It's not that I want my year to end right now, because everything that's coming up in the next month will be exciting and worthwhile, but I'm looking forward to this summer! Then I can finally have one, big, huge reflection on this monumental year.
I especially liked your quote "looking forward to looking back." Since I've been here, I have had all those usual rushes of memories. When the weather turns cold, I remember past seasons of strutting around Chicago with friends. When the weather warms up, I get years of memories of the joys of spring and the approaching summer, hanging around the music bldg late at night, playing with my brother, etc. And it can make me sad that I've left it all behind. But then I remind myself that I'm making new seasonal memories right now, which will enrich my life just as much in future years. The only question is which memories of Paris will be the most special to me?
I'm so proud of both of us, Court. Thanks for posting.
oh beth, I love how you are my most faithful reader. I can't wait to see you in chicago this summer and make new memories!
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