How to Be Alone (or maybe not)

Yes, it's been awhile. I got bored with writing this thing, but now I'm back (maybe)...

Sorry about that. Now for some content!

I made a playlist of all my favourite songs from when I was 18 and did the South Bank walk for probably the hundredth time with all of the tourists, but instead of fulfilling my purported goal of really appreciating the fact that I live in London, I got caught up in remembering a largely uneventful weekend in October of 2008. It was fall break, and my roommate had gone to visit her boyfriend and at that point I didn’t have any other friends in Ann Arbor. There was literally no one to talk to, and according to my calculations, I went 72 hours without any human contact.

That Friday I had downloaded Bon Iver’s “For Emma, Forever Ago,” which, although I hadn’t know it at the time, had been recorded in an isolated cabin in the woods of Wisconsin. In other words, it was the perfect soundtrack to loneliness, and I spent what I would later come to view as the loneliest weekend of my life listening to it on repeat, pacing around my dorm room, falling in love with some guy I had met at a party. I never saw him again.  

And now, for the first time in four years, I’ve again started listening to “For Emma, Forever Ago."

It makes sense, in a way: I’m about a month and a half into living in a new place – the point at which I feel like I really should have established more in the way of connections with other people than I actually have. My undergraduate experience taught me to be very good at having long conversations about nothing and to be able to pull out a reference to zombies or something at any given time. It seems, however, that those skills aren’t transferrable to the real world. In reality you have to be prepared for your social engagements to involve more than watching random youtube videos (not that I haven't had fun doing that). It isn't enough to be vaguely sarcastic and to express enthusiasm for random, strange things. You have to consistently prove that you're intelligent and funny and interesting and generally worth spending time with. I spend a lot of time worrying that I'm failing. 

I suppose I had to come all the way to London to realise that my love of sarcasm and disinclination to admit that anything really matters to me were really nothing more than devices to avoid getting hurt. See, I like the things I like, and I know why I like them, but a critical word from someone, anyone else, and I’m questioning basically everything about myself. I wish I were exaggerating, but I’m really not. There are so many things I could talk about, so many things I want to say, so many conversations I've imagined having, but then when the moment to say these things actually comes, I can't do it. I pretend to be too tired to really discuss anything. I pretend to be concerned with something else. I pretend I don't care. 

I wish I could be braver.

And Kim? Tag! You’re it! (I haven’t forgotten your promise.)

Looks like I'm in London

Well. So. Um. Hmm.... What am I supposed to say?

Hi again, blog. I've missed you. (Actually, that's a lie. I've been mostly too busy to remember that I even have a blog.)

Anyway, this is the obligatory "I'm in London!" post. To put it succinctly, it's great here. If I were good at this blogging thing, I would give a thoroughly entertaining, blow-by-blow account of the important things that have happened since my arrival. The thing is, everything has been too much of a blur for me to really remember exactly what I've been doing.

I can, however, say a few things:

1. There has been quite a lot of wandering around, and I can now say that I am pretty well acquainted with at least a small portion of central/southeast London. What this means is that I know the names of at least nine streets, and I could give a detailed account of which coffee shops have a decent wifi connection. Which brings me to my next point...

2. I love my flat, despite the fact that I have no internet yet and - for the time being - no flatmates. This mostly doesn't matter, but the nights do tend to get a bit boring and lonely. I keep telling myself that a slightly disorienting adjustment time accompanies every move, and I just happen to be experiencing the one associated with this move. Soon, though, I will have friends and internet and (hopefully) purpose.

3. But wait. I will actually make friends, right? I ask myself this question at about 8 o'clock every night, and the answer is always the same: Probably, as long as people can see past the fact that their first 2-3 conversations with me will be pretty awkward. 

4. I haven't felt this uncertain about what tomorrow will look like in quite a long time, and that is a good thing. In the past, I thought that I was terrified of uncertainty, but I realize now that I actually seek it out. When I'm feeling unsure of things, you see, I always have a project to work on. I love a good project.

Thoughts Before Leaving

I apologize in advance for a relatively disjointed post, but I suppose I am leaving for London. Would you really expect anything else?

This is what the morning of departure looks like: apprehensive, with just a hint of the crazy eyes. 

The main thought as I begin the final few days before leaving for London is that I'm not sure they've arrived yet. The thoughts, I mean. I'm supposed to be having thoughts of the London variety, but actually I hardly ever think about London at all.

Or maybe that isn't necessarily true.

Maybe I do think about it, but not in the way that I used to. The phase of speculating about how my life will be seems to be over, as does the phase of idealizing the way things will be. I'm done imagining scenarios in which I get off the plane and first person I meet ends up being my future best friend or something. I no longer fantasize about meeting my favorite British celebrities. I also now understand that my academic life won't actually consist of a movie-esque "studying" montage, ending with me receiving an award for Year's Most Brilliant Master's Thesis. No, these thoughts don't really turn up much anymore.

Now when I think about London, it takes the form of thoughts like: what bank should I choose? Are these shoes actually worth packing? Can I afford this? (No.) Do I have any idea how to get to my flat? (Again, no.) Is this a good idea? (I certainly hope so.)

Another common thought: I would like to be a college freshman again. Then I remind myself that - apart from being older and having better hair and immediate plans to move to another country - I'm in essentially the same position as I was four years ago. I'm starting over, just as I was then, and everything that now brings forth these feeling of nostalgia was, at that point, a total unknown. All the people I was about to meet, all the things I was about to do - I couldn't even conceive of them as we drove the hour and a half from my hometown to Ann Arbor, and I cried the whole time.

So far I haven't cried once about the impending London trip, and I'm not even feeling particularly nervous. If there's going to be fear, it generally sets in late at night and is always accompanied by these images of me wandering lost around London with more luggage than I can handle. Then I force myself to think about something else.

UPDATE (on the morning of departure): Well, I cried, but then I got through the part where I had to say goodbye to my family and remembered that I still have a working knowledge of how to be a self-sufficient grown-up. I mean, sort of. There is still a 50/50 chance that I will have a breakdown at the airport (sadly, this had happened before). Possible breakdown aside, I think I'm fine.

There's a long day of waiting ahead of me, followed by a long night of flying, followed by London.

I'm pretty sure this is a good idea.

What Do I Have To Offer?

A metaphor, perhaps? I don't know. But I like the picture.

When I was in high school, if there was something you could read about in a book, there was probably a time when I considered it my thing. You know, my thing: my calling in life, my passion, my fate. I pictured myself as a doctor, a medical researcher, a novelist, a journalist, (for a couple of hours one afternoon) a poet, a professor of literature, a political activist, and, from the vantage point of a high school senior, all of these futures appeared equally possible.

Then I started college, and I stopped believing in fate. Just because I memorized all the paths of blood flow in the human heart and my best friend once said she could see me being a surgeon, I wasn't necessarily meant to cut people open and fix broken things inside of them. Likewise, just because I was reading Dickens and the Brontë sisters and Dumas at 14, my future didn't necessarily lie in dissecting these texts and passing judgement on what the writers were trying to say. I can't pinpoint the moment it came to me, but sometime during my freshman year of college, I realized that I could do whatever I wanted; I could change the way things work out just by changing my mind. It was liberating, and it was disorienting. For the first time in my life, I couldn't picture my entire future stretched out in front of me because I knew, in all likelihood, I would spend the rest of my life changing my mind, always searching for some better option than the one that currently holds my attention.

Had I majored in biology or creative writing (neither of which I actually majored in, both of which I very seriously considered), I probably would still have reached my current impasse. I would still be debating whether it's possible to do something that's romantic and creative and idealistic while working toward practical solutions of at least one of the world's problems and making at least enough money to survive. My instincts say that there's no real reason for this to be impossible, but, like everything worth doing, it'll take a fair amount of planning and a fair amount of luck, not to mention a bit of spontaneity. I may have to take jobs that don't come with the perk of a guaranteed successful career trajectory. Someday I may take a job at a nonprofit that doesn't necessarily work in a field of personal interest, but this type of work would nonetheless give me a sense of what it actually means to work for a nonprofit organization. I may live in quite a few cities before I find one that's a good fit.

I have to start seeing every experience as valuable. I have to stop believing that there will be a point in life where I make one decision that cements the future conditions and circumstances of my life. Maybe the real world isn't the all-or-nothing, black-and-white place I once assumed it to be. Maybe there's room for mistakes and changing your mind. Maybe everything won't always work out according to plan, and when it doesn't, I'll have to learn to make the most of what opportunities are available. I think it's a lesson worth learning.

Reality Check

I think part of me really wanted to believe that the world is just one big hedonistic playground, and my undergraduate days didn't help in dispelling my belief that this might, in fact, be true. By some miracle of financial aid, I managed to get my Bachelor's degree without any debt. What's more, my grant money allowed me to eat out and study in coffee shops basically whenever I wanted, and when I got a job, it was more the result of wanting work experience than financial necessity. I studied hard, sure, and sometimes stressed out to a considerable extent, but mostly I dabbled a lot in subjects I thought might be interesting without taking on the responsibility of focusing too heavily on one thing.

Now, though, I feel reality hitting, and it's hitting me hard.

The main thing I'm learning is that Money Is Real, and it doesn't just magically materialize in your bank account because the financial aid gods have decreed that it will be so. Moreover, evil extortionists (I'm looking at you, apartment company) will try their hardest to milk you for all you're worth. I mean, I don't have $100 to pay a fine for a parking tag that certainly never existed. Why wouldn't I have a parking tag? Well, because I DON'T HAVE A CAR. I don't even want a car. Shocker, I know. What kind of American am I?

Partly because I have absolutely no income and lots of things to pay for, partly because of the complete lack of action on the moving-to-London front, partly because I'm back to playing dozens of games of solitaire everyday, I can't shake the feeling that I'm not much good at real life. I remember the days when I used to consider myself a competent adult. I always showed up on time for work and class; I cooked my own food, did my own laundry, cleaned my apartment, worked out every day. And I know that I stopped being that person because summer happened and I moved home and I didn't have to be fully accountable for myself anymore.

Then I remind myself that some people have real problems, and I am not one of those people. I remind myself that everyone probably gets this life-isn't-a-game reality check at some point. Maybe mine just came so late that I was lulled into the delusion that it never would, that I could go on forever spending and spending and spending and having fun and never having to deal with any consequences and never having to take any real responsibility for my actions.

It's time, I suppose, to enter into actual reality - not the glamorous pseudo-reality of doing whatever I want whenever I want, not the teenager's version of what it means to be grown up - no, the reality of determining what you really want out of life and going for it, of doing things that are difficult and frustrating without complaint, of sucking it up and not acting like a child about every little setback. Yeah, I'm well overdue on that one.

Thrifting with Sarah and Kimberly

About two years ago, I went through a phase during which I bought most of my clothes at thrift stores. This wasn't because I was broke or particularly liked what the thrift stores had to offer, but rather because I thought I would be very cool to have a skirt last owned by somebody's grandmother. Of course when I actually wore these thrift store "finds," I would invariably realize that they were not only outdated, but also unflattering and fairly ugly. After a summer of dressing this way, I ventured back into the mall, rediscovered the joys of H&M and began to dress like a normal person again.

Until yesterday afternoon, the urge to go thrifting had lain dormant for about a year and a half, but then, for some inexplicable reason, I decided that it would be fun to check out the new Volunteers of America Thrift Store. The fun didn't manifest itself immediately, and as I stared blankly at the racks organized by color and ran my hands over the synthetic fabrics, I considered how some past version of myself would have probably bought that floor-length, button-down, rose-printed monstrosity of a skirt, full of honorable intentions to cut it shorter for improved cuteness. Current me, though, was looking for usability and practicality.

I got relatively quickly back into the rhythm of thrifting - working through the racks; giving each item a quick glance; assessing for color, pattern, cut; subjecting anything that passes on the three previous counts a closer inspection - and within 10 minutes I had picked out a handful of potentially wearable skirts to try on. In the dressing room I remembered the first rule of thrifting, namely try everything on.  In the case of thrift-store clothing, it's impossible to know whether the size listed on the tag (if there is one) corresponds to current standard sizes, so I always - absolutely always - make that often frustrating trip to the dressing room.

After much debate, I ended up buying two floral print skirts and a red vintage purse.

I wanted to end this post by saying something really discerning about how my decision to buy usable clothing at a thrift store marks some profound change in the way I view myself, or how buying cheaper used clothing means that I've become more financially responsible. Really, though, I don't think either of these things are strictly true. What is true is that I've been reading too many of those Thought Catalog essays, and they're filling me with this desire to make every minor detail of my life sound much more significant than it actually is. Sometimes a skirt is just a skirt, and even if you only paid a dollar for it, owning it doesn't mean that you've grown up. It just means you have to find another skirt hanger.

My Trendy Hipster Hobby: I don't have one

I was flipping through a magazine the other day, and I came across this tampon ad featuring a girl who writes a blog about knitting. Immediately I think: "I'm not as cool as her." Given my history with knitting, this thought is fairly surprising.

I first considered the craft when I was probably about 10 years old, and I bought some knitting needles and yarn with the intention of making really amazing things. Except the fate of the knitting needles was to be props in my make-believe games, specifically in those that required me to impersonate an old lady. Just go with it - my childhood pretend games were pretty convoluted.

Maybe four years later, Kim (my sister - she writes here sometimes) decided to learn to knit for real, and she tried to convince me to do the same. I, however, adopted the knitting-is-for-old-ladies-and-spinsters attitude. I had realized neither that spinsters no longer exist, nor that all properly cool girls these days must behave and dress like old ladies from time to time. In addition to being oblivious to cultural trends, I failed to acknowledge how cool it would be to knit my own scarves. Seriously, if I could knit, I would knit scarves by the thousands.

In many ways, my relationship with knitting resembles my relationships with all other hobbies. This means that I pretended to do a lot of things as a child, became too cool to even consider doing these things as a teenager, and then really wished I could do them as a young adult. Hypothetically, I know that it's never too late to take up a hobby, but every time I try, the experience is somewhat akin to dying my hair, in that it seems exciting at first, but I eventually decide that the upkeep requires more effort than it's worth. At least this has been my experience with my forays into photography, sewing, drawing, and writing poetry.

Don't take this to mean that I spend all of my time doing nothing. I cook things from time to time and do what I like to call food-ography:

Occasionally I acquire random new skills, like sailing:

I read things, I write things, I listen to music, but I don't really make anything by hand. Sometimes this troubles me, because I really like the idea of coming up with a concept and then creating this thing from raw(ish) materials. The fact that I read a lot of blogs by very creative people only compounds the problem. They're like, "Oh, look, I woke up today and decided to hand paint a rug" And I'm like, "Cool. I painted my toenails last week." 

I think the secret to having creative hobbies is having creative ideas, and maybe this is where my major failing lies. Or maybe I'm just lazy. Maybe I don't make anything because every time I think, "I'd really like a new shirt," I never consider making my own or repurposing one from a thrift store. Usually I just go to Forever 21. 

Could it be to my advantage, though, to begin making more things as I take on my grad school debt? Quite possibly. Maybe the desire to look really cool won't inspire me to be creative, but maybe financial necessity will...

Maybe learning to knit wouldn't be such a bad idea after all. 

Move On Already!

My bed was like a taco in the sense that I was sleeping on nothing but a brown sheet folded in half like a taco shell. The problem with the taco was that, unlike actual tacos, it wasn't warm inside. Too much air conditioning. My body, I suppose was of normal temperature, but try as I might to radiate heat, I couldn't warm that sheet up. I missed my duvet like you wouldn't believe. Any bit of heat I managed to squeeze out my duvet would capture and hold prisoner for the rest of the night. It was a clever one, that duvet, but now I've relegated it to a shelf in my closet in my parents' house.

My Ann Arbor bedroom used to be a warm and welcoming place. Now it's the blank-walled, bare-bedded, empty-closeted shell of its former self. The rest of the apartment has likewise suffered from the lack of my ridiculous amounts of stuff. It is no longer the place of freshly baked scones...

And comically-named bottles of wine...

And walls covered with possibly too many pictures. 

No, it's not my apartment anymore. It's okay. Really. I haven't (yet) had even one emotional breakdown about this development. I just have to keep telling myself that I don't have to spend the rest of my life in this post-graduation, pre-grad school limbo.

In its infinite wisdom, my sister's college guide magazine says, "life changes. keep up with it." But what about those times when life keeps promising to change but then decides to take forever to get around to it? What about those times when life says, "Sure, you get to go to grad school in London, but you can only earn this privilege by spending four months in purgatory. If you don't lose your mind, you'll have the chance to do something cool. But, knowing you, you'll probably lose your mind."? What about those times?

What about the times when you hang out with your friends and realize that you really may not see some of them ever again?

What about the times when you don't even care that your bathroom counter is covered with makeup residue and hair and wet dust (seriously, gross) because it's not really your bathroom anymore?

What are you supposed to do when in all of your dreams you're on planes and trains, and when you pick up your phone to call your family or a friend, it shatters into tiny pieces?

What about those times?

What are we supposed to do?

My advice: don't emulate me and get all angsty. Teenage-esque angst is never the answer - at least not at the age of 22. But what if I've reverted to the age of 14 in terms of maturity? Because there's a distinct possibility that this has happened, probably because I moved back home after college. I think I need to work on re-growing up.

Nice to meetcha... what are you doin' in my waters?

Well, hi. My name is Kimberly, and I'm Sarah's sister. In fact, teachers throughout the years have referred to me as such "Oh, so you're Sarah's sister?". Sometimes even going to the extreme of forgetting my name and calling me Sarah.

Aside from that, I am 16, and a rising high school senior. I enjoy singing and theater, ice skating, pretending I can speak foreign languages, and pretending that I like to run (obviously I love playing games of pretend). I also like cake. And reading. And watching television. Normal stuff, I guess.

This is me doing magic. Am I Sabrina the Teenage Witch? Probably.

In my blogging, I will probably cover subjects such as applying to college, the traveling that I do, books, and whatever strikes my fancy. I suppose now I will insert a photo that makes me smile in attempts to make my reader smile. Cheers. Well, bye then.

Love.