I can not begin to fill in the gap that my months long absence has left on this blog. Let's just say I have missed it and my semester has been a ridiculous trip. And now, its starting to end.
For those of you keeping track at home, I am in my final semester of my Bachelors of Arts in English at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. For all the mediocre hours of my first year and a half here, this last semester has thrown them back full of work, school, and some fantastic people I don't have enough time with.
For the first time in my life I have experienced the sensation of having too many people I want to see and be with. My cup is overflowing.
Beyond this I have been challenged nearly every where I turn. Which will be the topic of my next post and the reason I am back on this blog.
But I digress:
I never thought I would love this city as much as I have. I am leaving it in five weeks for an unforeseeable amount of time and am struck by the frustrating feeling that I am only on the very rim of the awesomeness to be found here. This could be on a list of things I have the discovered about myself over the course of the "Greensboro Years."
1) I adore investing in people but I am lazy about it. I need to force myself through the first few steps of a relationship (i.e the going out to meet people and saying yes/inviting out myself the first few times). I spent an unfortunate amount of free time with myself and thought I was perfectly happy. In reality I was drowning in my own inabilities.
2) I am not universally adventurous. Sure I have learned more routes and back ways to more parts of the city than three of my fellow students combined (due partly to my job and partly to my ability to memorize directions and form a map in my head and hold on to it), but I pointedly avoided whole sections of the city, namely downtown because I thought I would dislike it. Less than ten minutes from are whole streets of coffee shops, stores, art museums and basically a ton of stuff that would interest the heck out of me that I have not even begun to explore.
There are countless more little things, but these were the ones that surprised me. They have inspired my own version of a Greensboro Bucket List, which I will put at the end of this post.
Quick outline of my life.
I am finishing my degree and moving out of my apartment of two years in the same weekend. I am moving home for about two weeks then its off to Georgia for the next three months of camp madness. Then my life is open.
The last step could be an entire series, but let's focus on the first two.
The first side of my dichotomy comes with step two of my outline. Home to Camp. I have not been home since Christmas, the longest I have ever been away. I have not been to camp since December and this summer brings the exciting (albiet intimidating) switch from cabin staff to Head Counselor (for the girls). I adore camp and the work that it does and the people there who do it. I am so excited to be there again.
The final side to my dichotomy falls on both sides of the happy/sad realm of leaving Greensboro. A huge part of me wants to be done to graduate and another huge part wants to slow the time down every day and
appreciate the power walking to class because I'm late,
the discussion with my classmates,
seeing two students playing shadow tag for no apparent reason,
the birds singing on the top of the trees,
the way the trees hang over the road on my way to work,
the way my five year old nanny-ee looks at me when she's think she's done something incredibly smart and mischievous
or the way her brother paces while talking emphatically with his voice and hands every time I mention football/Peyton Manning,
the way my 2 1/2 year old says my name,
the way his sister listens intently while I explain concepts way above her learning level,
the way I walk into BCM and instantly see at least seven people I want to hug and talk with,
the way I come home to the old wooden floors and overly painted cracked walls of my seventy year old apartment,
the smile that comes to my face every time I welcome another precious child into my sunday school classroom,
the feeling of being recognized by people you know have no real reason to notice you,
the way I can talk to my roommate for twenty minutes with a toothbrush in my mouth just because we got caught up in an unexpected conversation,
my neighbors and their quirks, including the one who has a 70 pound, hairy 'goldfish' in our pet-free complex,
the man who sits and drums in the park across the road from my house,
the way I hear the bells of the Catholic church half a mile away when the windows are open,
listening to my nanny kids "rap" along to the clean versions of Eminem songs in my backseat,
the way I can sit and not run out of things to miss.
This seems an appropriate time as ever to post my six-week bucket list.
1) Go to a Grasshopper's game with Katie G.
2) Go thrift shopping with Logan, Katie C, Tonisha, Zack, Grace and whoever else.
3) Go to the dollar theatre/dinner with Jovantae, Tevin, Brandon and whoever else.
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| Elm Street |
4) Spend an afternoon wandering Elm Street etc.
5) Have coffee at the Green Bean,
6) Pull another closer at The Coffee Break, handwriting whatever story I want.
7) Eat at Postiano's and go to frozen yogurt at Taste/Red Mango least two more times.
8) Order Chinese delivery with Megan from Panda Express.
This may not seem like much, but I will be gone for the next two weekends which puts a little press on time. If you see your name on this list, I hope dearly that I will fulfill my goal.
And to those other readers, I hope to be back to soon with one of the following topics:
Why I am back.
Camp Preparation.
Things I have learned.
I am now off to BCM to hug some amazing souls. And officially renaming this post, "Ode to Greensboro Life" but not really because I love the word "dichotomy".
good evening.
right now i am thinking about the idea of missing. we miss people, places, things. what does that mean? what is the logic of missing something? does it imply discontent or just a love that wants to defy separation? you miss something when you don't have it, but you want it, so i suppose it could be both. i aspire to miss things not out of discontent, but out of the deep love. i have talked to people who believe that relationships are somewhat ended or at least majorly affected by distance. whether that be physical or emotional distance. for example if someone moves across the country but you still talk not much will change, but if you live down the road from each other and work in the same place and go to the same church but don't talk then that is emotional distance. i will not disagree completely, i will also not disagree whole heartedly. i have friendships that remain just as strong though there has been nearly a year with little to no contact. i can't explain that. i also have relationships that seem strong but all but dissipate over the course of a few months with no clear assignment of blame. what is the qualifier? this is something that has never bothered me much because i have from a young age resolved within myself to be a friend to whoever i meet for as long as i live. i may have no contact with someone for years, but if they called and asked for help or wanted to catch up, i like to think that i would do my best to be there for them. the problem with this mindset is has left me with a somewhat one-sided view of friendship. i just don't think about many other people's side of the friendship, or rather i don't think about anyone else wanting to be my friend. i have a hard time imagining that. not necessarily as some form of low self-esteem, but out of a basic assumption that hardly any one (and believe me there are a growing number exceptions to this so don't feel slighted if you are reading this...because i have so many people in my life that bless my socks off) appeared to care as much as i did. then i got to thinking outside myself and how apathetic i know i can appear and decided that i probably look pretty uncaring to a lot of people when i'm really not because people don't go around with the words, "hey, i'm your friend unconditionally" written across their foreheads. it is something that many people wouldn't buy even if it was written there, because friendship tends to be best shown in action and if i went ten years without contacting a friend they would probably have little reason to call despite my honest intention to be there for them because i have done little to prove it. so its cyclical. and my friend is not very wrong at all about the basic, just maybe not as positive about the mechanics of the idea.
