I've been packing the library. It is apparently the place things go to be forgotten. There were boxes that never got unpacked, just squirrelled away there. And even the stuff that did get shelved... Well I'm finding a lot of papers and notebooks from my time at Ithaca College. I've been skimming most of it before dumping it into the recycling. It's kind of entertaining. Here's what I have learned: I am not the person I was then.
It reminds me a little of a show I like. Very beginning of the series, 2 guys my age who had gone to med school together and haven't seen each other since, sitting on a park bench catching up.
Mike: that doesn't sound like the John Watson I knew.
John: I'm not the john you knew.
It's a writers trick meant to hint at a traumatic backstory that we won't get told to help introduce us to new characters.
But now I sit and read these letters and papers from 15 years ago and I realise it's an unfair trick. It's not trauma that makes a 40 year old different from their 25 year old selves, it's just life. It's not that reading this stuff makes me feel old, certainly not in the way the occasional Oswego papers I'm turning up do. Or rather not so much old now as very young then. (Sociology papers written by 19 year olds are a cross between amusing and boring.) It's more that the things that concerned me then I don't even think about any more.
To be fair I don't think I'm that different. You'd recognise me: optimistic, usually happy*, goal oriented and organised enough to achieve it. But I was much more serious then and gave weight to things that aren't so significant. I think I was trying so hard to be grown up that I thought things had to be Important.
* the exception to usually happy was my semester in Louisiana. That journal would concern me if I didn't know how the story ended. I mean, I remember not liking Louisiana, but to read day by day how miserable and depressed I was, which was (and is) so out of character. But even then I was determined not to stay miserable and making plans and backup plans for how to fix it. No wonder Mom and Dad were supportive of my mad scheme to move to Slovakia. If they had any inkling of how unhappy I was any change would be a change for the better.
Good to hear that you are getting through the thick of it--- I guess we are always looking for what is important. If I am stressing I ask myself will I remember this 1 week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, 10 years etc. from now- is it that IMPORTANT- usually in my case anyway- the event or thing in question will not be on my mind 6 months from that point.
ReplyDeleteI agree. It just took me 15 years to really learn that.
Delete"...and gave weight to things that aren't so significant. I think I was trying so hard to be grown up that I thought things had to be Important."
ReplyDeletehmmm yeah. interesting to ponder. I like Christa's thought... will it be important a year from now? Most times no. Yet your decision on whether or not to leave Louisiana would have been important whichever path you chose (stay or go)... glad you picked the better path. I knew you didn't like it, but didn't realize it was to the point of being miserable... had I known that I would have (I hope) urged you to bail sooner.
Glad you are blogging ... fun to keep up w/ you :)
But I'm about to quit commenting because I can't get these darned Blogspot Captcha's right! grr.