so today was the day that i realized that...i don't have a curfew. it's kind of weird thinking about that. i came to this epiphany while watching someone's spain travel vlog. i didn't realize it before, but if i don't have anything to do at all, no plans with friends, no reason to go to the library, no errands to run, i just sit at home. and sitting at home or sitting in the dorm is great. but i realized that i could go outside and not have to worry about curfew or parents or worrying anybody. i could simply go. and i think my whole college experience so far has really been acknowledging how much freedom i truly have. when i got my license and when i got my first car, my first thoughts weren't "how far can i go?" "how far can i drive?" "what now?" my thoughts were simply "this is nice and convenient." and for the first year of having my license i didn't even drive out of the city that i lived in. i didn't even think about doing that. i had no desire. my tiny bubble was where i was comfortable. sure i do dream a lot about travel. ask anyone. i want to see the glaciers before they melt. i want to go to japan in the spring and see the cherry blossoms just as much as the next person. i want to go to australia and see the great barrier reef. but it also scares me to think about doing those on my own. even taking the bus around my little college town fills me with anxiety. "what if i take the wrong bus?" "what if i pull the string too soon and the bus driver gets mad?" "what if someone scary comes along?" maybe that's just my intuition as a woman that something scary could come along and threaten my safety. even today when i realized how much freedom i truly have...it kind of scared me. no, it really scared me. i didn't even walk that far. i walked to the edge of the sea-worn cliff, a 5 minute walk at most from my dorm. it was scary. my heart was beating. my eyes hadn't adjusted to the dark yet. my mind was racing and i thought of all the things that the dark could be hiding in its obscurity. but when my eyes finally adjusted to the way everything was illuminated in the moonlight, it was beautiful. i could hear the waves and smell the weirdly sweet smell of the ocean. i could sit on this worn down bench that i knew was bleached almost white in the sun without worry of splinters. and i just sat there looking at the stars twinkling.
and my head was filled with so many thoughts. most of them were vague. i just let them come and go like when i meditate for my anxiety. lots of them weren't anything much, just reflecting on memories i had from when my family would go to the beach in santa cruz, oregon, and hawaii. especially the ones that we shared when it was dark out. i was especially reminded of those ones as i sat there. i was just overwhelmed with the emotions that i felt. maybe because it was dark out and it wasn't very cold, i was really aware of my facial expression. when i tilted my head up to look at the half moon i could feel the slight smile on my face. and then i reflected on it, like why was i smiling? did just seeing nature and relaxing make me happy? did i smile just in case someone was looking? did i smile to mask all of the little stupid things i was worrying about like whether i was studying enough for my finals coming up next week? or did i make the people i ate dinner with that night feel uncomfortable?or why couldn't my mind be completely blank? and i tried to contort my face into a frown instead. but looking up at the sky i just couldn't help but smile again. it was kind of weird to be hyper-aware of that, but it gave me a lot of time to reflect.
it was also weird because i just kept trying to empty my head of thoughts, but that didn't really work out. so then i started to wonder if that was because i was scared of the silence or what it was, but really it's one of those things where when you don't think about it it happens. and so the mind quiets itself when it wants to really.
and then on my way back, i was only there for some 20 minutes or so, or at least i think i was, i started reflecting on some of the memories that i've had that i didn't document or write down. and how that's kind of sad because i'll remember some of them for sure, but some of them i'll only be left with the sensation of happiness or sadness or anger or whatever other emotion i was feeling. and how i should really write those down. some of them are recorded as little tidbits i add at the beginning of my blogposts, but some of them are lost forever in the abyss of my mind or even further. and i wonder if that's really okay. for all of those things that i just forgot to just be forgotten and never recollected? i mean there's really nothing i can do about those now, and i probably won't ever fully document all of my experiences because i've really got so many things i'm trying to juggle and make daily habits at the moment that i'm really not sure if i'll have time or even the desire later on.
the mind really is a funny place. there's not too much rhyme or reason to put to it unless you have some sort of reflection dump as i'm doing here. and even this isn't quite satisfying the desire i had for it. perhaps it's because my expectations of everything that i do or experience are just far too much. or perhaps because all of my thoughts stay vague because i can't express all of them and they just go by too fast for me to really flesh them out. maybe i'm just going crazy because i had too much caffeine and was in the stifled library for way too long. the world may honestly never know. but if i ever figure it out, i'll let you know.
i think i've dumped out enough for today. i think i just wanted to immortalize at least a part of what i was feeling. i think a lot of it was just in the moment and really hard for me to express, but at least some of it is there as reminders for me.
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