i don't even know.

i wrote most of this a couple days ago, then added to it yesterday and today.

~ ~ ~

do you know what i hate?  being very upset, and having almost no idea why.  and no, it's not "that time of month," i'm not "just overstressed" or "just needing to go get some sleep."  if it were any of those things, i would not be ranting here, because i try to be very careful about not overreacting in public.  i mean, that's almost certainly what i'm doing now, but only because i don't know what else to do about it.  i have absolutely nothing to complain about, but i feel like such a poo.  i ate dinner with my easily-exciteable and always cheerful friend, and then left her to do her homework afterwards, telling her i was going to go be an introvert for a while.  apparently that now means wandering around campus, crying, moping, and singing "Riga Girls" and "Nobody Knows Me At All" to myself.  what the crap is wrong with me???  i'm trying to avoid being self-centered.

triggers:
- seeing this same friend hug another mutual friend (whom i wish i knew better) and listening to them talk about the required extra work for a scholarship they both received
- seeing the mutual friend go off with a boy she often hangs out with (whom several of us have suspicions about)
- passing by people on campus going somewhere or doing something--older people whom i have a strong desire to know better (that one was mixed with a small amount of hope and disappointment)
- passing by a small group harmonizing "Beautiful Things" (that one was like sharp, like a stab, or at least like a splinter--it actually made me inhale sharply as i passed.)
- (earlier) passing by the room where the string quartet rehearsed (so much wist)

thoughts:
- sometimes i withdraw when i feel lonely because i would rather be lonely by myself than with a bunch of people who don't understand me.
- it seems like everyone has someone, whether it's a best friend, a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a sibling, a roommate...


it's not that i don't have friends.  i've been there before, and this isn't it.  it's strange though, because the ones who really know me, whom i really know, i barely see anymore.  most likely anyone reading this is in that category.  then there is the vast majority of people here, who are super friendly and nice and peppy and Christiany.  they're really cool to know, but sometimes i'm looking for something specific, and whatever it is i'm looking for is not there.  i apologize if you are one of those people; i love you very very much, but sometimes my poo-y mind needs more poo-y sympathizers (see Prov. 25:20), or sometimes i'm looking for someone with a common interest (in music, for example).  then there are a few people, most of them older (naturally), whom i wish i knew.  like, a lot.  but i don't want to be that annoying freshman.  i don't know if that would be the case, or if that's still a thing in college, but i don't even want to come close.  also, it's hard for me to just pursue relationships like that, just because of the way my personality is--it seems too unnaturally forged or contrived.  and when people already have strong bonds formed, it's hard to break in.  and now i officially sound like i am eight years old.  fitting somehow.

there must be some valuable telltale information in here somewhere.  i'm so tired, i don't even possess the emotional energy to seek it out.  and lately, i feel as bipolar as Schubert's String Quintet in C (if you don't feel like listening to an hour of chamber music, you can really just take my word for it).  probably there are multiple somethings combining, even if they might seem small.

this whole post is not even coherent.  sorry for taking your time.

~ ~ ~

i didn't post this the other night because i still wasn't convinced that i wasn't overreacting.  but after thinking a bit yesterday, and especially after talking with Rachel, i think that my emotional sensitivity is might be heightened because of my grandma passing.  so this makes more sense.  a little.  sort of.  if i were to chart my emotions, they would look like a freaking sine graph, but i'll allow myself some grace for overreacting to things.

long-term investment

i just had it recommended to me that i drop whatever high school friendships i've been trying to keep up and start over.  problems:

• it takes me so so so so long to develop those friendships--just to abandon them as soon as i don't see people on a daily basis anymore?  it's not like i keep in touch with all of those people still, but some of them i genuinely miss.  and facebook, whatever benefits it has, is no way to sustain a friendship. period.
• this is the thing i dreaded most about leaving high school.  and the thing i struggled with most while i was there.  it's not just the roles people play in my life that matter.  it's the people themselves.
• is this going to happen with college too?  "well, i don't see them anymore... it's ok, i'll just make some new friends."  what's even the point?  will this awful cycle ever stop??? how can i explain the importance to me that friendships don't break? i know sometimes they must, or the thing that sustained them ceases to exist, but come on!  this is the reason i haven't dated up to this point.  are relationships of such casual importance that we can just discard them and pick up somewhere else?

in general, i don't do casual relationships very well.  i mean, i have them, but if i'm going to invest in something, i want to make it last, not just drop it as soon as it's inconvenient.  it's not just some kind of cheap product from China.  and the more i've invested, the more my heart breaks when/if the friendship falls apart.  this is so important!!!! how can i communicate this?

how i really feel about college

a lot of people have been asking me lately how college is going.  that can potentially have quite a long answer, so i usually just say that i really like it, or something along those lines.  but if you want the full answer, here it is:

i love living here.  i love the beautiful campus.  i love my teachers.  i love my classmates.  i love my classes (well... mostly).  i love the many many opportunities to learn things i love learning about--things that are directly applicable to my own life.  for the most part, i have never been so unencumbered to just go for whatever it is that i want to learn or do.  and since i love learning and doing lots of different things, this is fantastic.  when it comes down to it, i'm really only limited by my own energy and time (which are real limits for sure, but they can be navigated to an extent).

also, i'm loving having all these music-education-related experiences that keep getting kind of served to me on a silver platter (or dumped in my lap, either way) without my having to work and search for them.  the fact that i'm even going here with this major was not exactly plan a, but it just kind of worked out that way.  i blame God for this--it seems like His type of scheme. :)

i suspect that i may never have a time in my life when i won't have multiple things going on, because there are so many things i want to learn and experience.  the difference here is that most of the things i'm involved with now have to do with school in some way, whereas before, i had commitments to multiple different things and people on a daily basis.  before it was very like a collage of different things; now it's more like a puzzle of pieces that pretty much fit together.  it's nice to have so much cohesion--the down side is that the things that aren't pieces of this puzzle fit much less neatly than they did before (things like old friendships, church commitments, family, etc.).  it's all a balance, of course.

one more thing i've noticed is how many people i'm finding i really want to know on a personal level (a sensation that isn't always common for me--not for so many people).  there are just so many unique and interesting individuals i interact with every day here.  it's a little sad because i still only have a limited amount of time and energy, and i know that the likelihood of getting to know all (or even most) of these people is not very high.  it's like Thanksgiving, when you eat just a little of everything, and you want more of everything but you're already stuffed.  and sometimes that social time needs to be spent with people whom i already know well (and who already know me well) instead of growing new friendships, just because i miss them.  but it's still exciting to be around so many people i legitimately enjoy and look up to.

anyway.  that's the majority of it.