The bitter sweetness of living

There is a quote from The Office (a show that to be honest I’ve never watched all of) that really tugs at my heartstrings.  I’ve come across it a few times on Twitter and Facebook.

“I wish there was a way to know you’re in the good old days, before you’ve actually left them.”

I spent a lot of high school dragging through the everyday.  I had friends, and I was happy; I made lots of wonderful memories.  But as life goes on you’re tired and you complain, and the months just sort of run into each other.

I think it’s easy to forget how grueling high school can be once you’re out of it, but you really are under a lot of stress, at least I was.

Then suddenly, I became a junior and I had some senior friends.  And even though I was closest with the people in my own grade, I became very aware that these other, older people were soon leaving.

I had heard people cry before their last senior musical, but there is a point where it really sort of hits you.  All this is temporary.

There are still lots of days when I thought “fuck this” and “I can’t wait to graduate and go to college.”  But at some point, time was split from waiting for it to be over to dreading it being over.

The same thing happened in college, except I’ve been aware of it from the start. Everyone tells you to make the most of these four years.

But that’s the thing, even when you’re aware of time passing, you can’t stop it.

My first semester freshman year I was homesick and not loving college.  It’s funny that even now I can only admit that it was “not loving.”  Did I flat out dislike it?

I felt like I had to force myself to love it, because it’s only four years and is supposed to be the best time of your life.  But I counted down the days until breaks.

But I am thankful for that first semester specifically freshman year.  I cried a lot, but I also laughed a lot.  I met people who I love with my whole heart.

I was forced out into this new Ohio world alone and little by little it all worked out.  My homesickness faded, I joined a sorority, things sort of fell into place.

After that, I had a great sophomore year and an amazing first half of my junior year.  It makes me nervous and sad to think about being a senior next year.

But even being aware that college is a fleeting opportunity didn’t make the bad days any better, and it didn’t make the fun days any greater.  If anything, it just helped me justify going out and watching more tv with my roommates than I should.

This might seem contradictory to my earlier post, but I truly believe you can’t force yourself to make the most of every moment.

You can choose to be present and to observe, but that doesn’t equate instant happiness.  You have to bask in the bad to bask in the good.

Being positive has its benefits, but you can’t always force it.

As I’m almost exactly halfway through this trip, I feel my anxiety start to mount.  While the first month was an adjustment, the second month was fabulous.  I never doubted that it would be.

I knew that homesickness and cultural adjustment is something you have to wait out.  But just as soon as one negative emotions dissolves, another moves in.

And now I feel that “ugh,” that I regret spending any moment here not overwhelmed with joy.  That anxiety that tells me there are only sixty days left.  That I’m halfway done.

Why is it that just as soon as you start to really love something and enjoy it, you’re plagued by its ending?  I finally get used to a change, then I instantly have to dread its changing back.

Can I make myself “live in the moment” and enjoy every single second?

Maybe I should delete social media?  Truly take in the last two months.  But would that honestly help? I like blogging, and I wouldn’t want to delete Facebook.

Maybe I should meditate? Journal four times a day?  Sleep for only five hours a night?

Is there any right answer?

I truly don’t think so.  There is truly no answer to not having enough time.  It’s the only thing that motivates us to live.

The best I can do right now is look at it as a luxury.  I’m young.  As a matter of fact, I just turned 21.  I get to have the liberty of living in three different places in the last four years.  Of making different friends, of trying out whatever I want.

I didn’t know how to sum up this post, but then while reading The Word for Woman is Wilderness by Abi Andrews, I came across this quote.

There is acute love for the thing then realizing that one day one way or another it will leave you or you will leave it or the light will change, but the magnitude of this hurt is itself something that adds to the beauty… Perhaps then the feeling is more accurately the love of sad beauty.  Or nostalgia that has not happened yet.

All I can say now is I’m happy.  And sorry this blog has been more about me than about Paris or France.  But is anyone really surprised?  I was warned I would learn more about myself than anything else.

This feels like home.  I know it’s a temporary home, but it’s another home that I will miss.