February 21, 2002
Wanna-Be College Student
Sometimes I wonder, have I forgotten how to go to school? I hope not. I sit here now and wish I didn't have time to read another lack luster fantasy novel, to update my diary every single day, to watch three hours of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So many things I enjoy doing, and yet would readily relinquish if I could just be a part of that one certain crowd: college students. I get upset easily when people ask questions; I am loathe to tell people the horrors of my situation. I feel judged: the one thing, that in all other respects, I could truly care less about. I know why I'm not in school. It's hard to explain. I realize that the first mistake was partially my fault, but the ones that followed were pure ill luck. I also know, not that I have reflected upon it extensively, that I wasn't ready to go to school last September. Not then, least of all there.
I feel like Gwyneth Paltrow in Sliding Doors, only I can see who I could've been. I would've changed, I know, enough so that a place that did not naturally suit me would have become my home. Had I stayed, I wouldn't be me anymore. Not the me I know. Maybe I would've never written Marian, maybe I would've stopped writing altogether. Maybe I would've left Ryan sooner, maybe I would've found someone else.
The hardest thing in the world is to live with your own decisions. I've found peace outside of the questions, because I like who I am. I like what I see before me, and try not to regret what is behind. I don't regret leaving Ohio University, not at all, sometimes I just wonder what would've happened if I hadn't.
So I am here, on the funny blue chair in the University of Cincinnati library, waiting for Kels to finish her tutoring, perpetually waiting, anticipating the eight months that stand between me and the beginning of classes at Miami.
I wonder how I will fill them.
astera at university