Year of The Blog
2018 is finally here and I figure now is as good as it gets. I’ve been wanting to journal since I was 5 and here i am... 18 years later? I suppose I haven't quite made it to the journal stage yet so I figure a blog is the next best thing. ~ Let the blogging begin ~
Putting your thoughts into the ether is nerve wrecking, I don’t really expect anything back or necessarily believe that blogging will be useful to anyone beyond myself; mostly as a tool for coping with what has been my first 9 months outside an educational institution.
You’re raised your whole life to believe school is the key to something greater, or at least I was, and when you finally get the “key” - diploma (whatever) - you have to find your door. I think I've found my door... but i’m not sure I was ready to open it? Is it wrong to question privileged and education and opportunity, to feel like somehow you didn't always want what you believed you wanted, or deserve the things you may have been handed, is it wrong to question... Probably not, but sometimes it sure doesn't feel great to finish a race and wonder why you ran so hard against so many people to place for a medal you’re unsure was for you.
I can piss and moan that I care little for my bronze or silver or gold, for my finished race; but holy crap did I have a good time running it. The breathless fight to get something I believed I needed was worth every sleepless evening and day I spent ill and coughing, dragging myself out of bed and into a final. There was something fulfilling about that day I crossed the finish line, hungover, in 102 degree weather to get my paper medal proclaiming I did in fact finish “college”, that I was a success in the eyes of my grandmothers.
“Who was this for...”, is something I often ask myself. More often than not I feel it was for my family, because my degree was for them, but the experience was selfish - the friends , the odd jobs, the shitty house and the parties were all for me. The self exploration that was completely out of hand at times was a self-indulgent dive that became so much more than the end result. My point is in a way I won my race not because I finished but because I ran it in the first place, and I don't know that I’ll ever stop running it. Perhaps the purpose of my blog isn't to teach myself that I had a single defining race to win, but that I have a whole damn marathon to enjoy.