Monday, June 9, 2014

De-stressing is going on a journey (no pun intented)

        I've been stressed about college lately (I'm just 2 (or so) days into my senior year of high school, and the cold, swirling waters are threatening to give me hypothermia).
 They're making me come up with a whole list of colleges I'd want to apply to; they're also expecting me to have the picture of an ideal college in my mind; they want me to know exactly what I want to do 3 months from now
           (and by they, I mean society. Which means that I'm basically stressing out and doing things because I'm making myself stress out and do things. Because "society" doesn't make anyone do anything. To not care about what society is saying is perfectly fine-no one's stopping you-or me- from being different. It's just that we're too scared to be, or maybe even ignorant of being, different; and hence, force ourselves to care about society. That is why I will stop blaming my stress on society, and rightfully take the crown of that responsibility for myself).
                          Obviously, I can't cope too well with stress, it forces me into (more than usual) incoherence and pretentiousness.
            What makes it worse is that even if the college hunt (I hate calling it that. I'm not hunting colleges; they're hunting me. I'm repulsed by walking into my kitchen and seeing a formidable stack of college brochures on the counter. I hate it) makes me sick, I can't stop talking about it.

My Internet Browser History looks something like this:
Bing Search: Liberal Arts College
Bing Search: Journalism School
Bing Search: Liberal Arts College with Journalism
Bing Search: Difference between Journalism school and Liberal Arts College
...and on, and on, and on, and on...(and on)

So not only am I stressed and confused and overwhelmed, I am manically obsessed with being all those things. I feel like Victor Frankenstein, I really do. (That is good analogy, if I say so myself.)

         Besides compulsively looking for universities I might fit into, I've been..well... noticeably weird(er). I spent a third of my day cuddled up in my blankets inside a pillow fort, pretending I'm a homeless person who's being hunted by the "normal" people -not alone mind you, I'm not that crazy (I think), but with my brother-it was a childhood game.

           Coming to think of it, it was a pretty weird game. Why would 7-year-old me decide that the real enemies-the one's who can only be warded off by a pillow fort (which is a big deal for a 7-year-old)- are the normal people: the ones who walk on the street with their tailored to perfection suits, the ones with their disapproving glares, the ones who are indescribably mundane: natural, orderly...other thesaurus words. Why is it that 7-year-old-me fought what is natural, and normal, so instinctively (naturally?) ?

             While other little girls had tea parties and played with their little dollies, I hid from the normal world with all its traditions and rules (To be fair though, the world behind my pillow fort was perfect- I don't really remember what I did, but I do remember the bliss of staying there. A bliss that was no longer present when a fully (well kinda) grown me tried to recreate the circumstances). Nevertheless, that is messed up.

             Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a lonely child; I had friends, but I kinda pulled them into my little game too. At one point, my pillow fort had troop of 7 soldiers (consisting of cousins, best friends, and that one weird kid who lived around the corner). But really, why is being different so important to me? Why?

         Haha I've questioned everything about everything for as long as I can remember: culture and norms, public "decency", stereotypes, generalizations etc.
I've always been interested in patterns. Now I'm trying to find a pattern in my questioning. I'm questioning my ability to question... And it's time to stop before I fall into an existential crisis (trust me, those are dangerous)
          Questioning everything is profitable as long as you don't cross that invisible line you can feel- it's more of an invisible energy field actually- as you approach it.

Stress can really do things to you, and stress-release can do quite some other things. This post really took me on a journey. It did (repeating things is always so reassuring haha).
That it shall. (1 Corinthians 1:8)

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