Thursday, June 21, 2012

Pushing the reset button.

We're fast approaching the last 36 hours or so before I load up the car and truck and make the trek down to DC. I'm moving out of my mother's house. Like, for real this time, not like going away to college I'll-se-you-when-I'm-on-break-in-six-weeks leaving, but rather I-just-signed-a-13-month-lease here's-my-new-address moving out. 

And it's funny because when I was fake-moving-out to go to Princeton, I did a crazy overall life reset. I had come to terms with the fact that I didn't really want to keep being the person I was, and actively underwent a major overhaul trying to redress and redefine myself. My entire mindset was new place, new friends, new me. And even though I didn't stick with the self I'd created for Princeton for very long, rather opting to develop into the person Princeton made me, I definitely learned the value of taking a moment out for self-reflection immediately before a major life change, and the opportunity to personal development new places, faces, experiences, and challenges offer us. 

Four years ago, when I was getting ready to move, I was so excited for everything to change. I wanted to become everything I didn't think my hometown could make or let me be. The entirety of my immediate future was one big Wonderball of opportunity that I couldn't wait to take advantage of. 

And now I'm tempted to say that I'm moving, but I don't want anything to change. That's hyperbole, but I feel so much closer to the other end of the spectrum. It's like, I'm moving and everything is changing and there's not much I can do about it. But...come to think of it, that's not really the truth either. 

I am absolutely not looking for a personality overhaul like I was last time. I'm not looking to redefine myself. I happen to think I'm pretty damn fabulous. In all honesty, I adore the person these past four years have made me, and I'm not finna let her go. I want to maintain her, and I plan to do this by maintaining the types of activities and relationships that made her, both specifically and generally. I can't say that I'm going to stay in such regular communication with (all of) my friends from college that catch-up sessions won't be necessary, but I demand that such sessions be many and frequent. I'm going to keep blogging and keep following all the blogs I follow. I've joined a bunch of meetup groups and am searching for like-minded folks with whom to have discussions of the Large Library (read: late night college) variety. I'm going to read again. 

But there have to be things about the college lifestyle that I don't particularly want to hold onto in this new chapter of my life. Let us count the things:
  1. I don't want to only actively maintain those friendships which are logistically convenient. In fact, I refuse to.
  2. I don't want to be tired all the time. There is no reason to be consistently running on empty anymore. When I hit that first wave of tired at night, I should go to sleep. There's no reason to pretend I'm not tired. End of story.
  3. I refuse to be off balance. No part of my life deserves to be dominating everything else. 
  4. I want to read for pleasure. I want to do absolutely nothing sometimes without feeling bad about it. I want to watch TV. I want to take back my free time. 
  5. I want to eat better. And drink more water. I did that well last summer, by simply not buying drinks so that I drank a lot of water. 
  6. I want to exercise regularly. I've already decided that I'm going to walk to/from work, because it's less than a mile each way, but there's a gym in my office building and I want to start using it. Maybe after work two or three days a week?
  7. I want the majority of my free time at least one day a week to not be spent in front of my computer. I want to go out into the world and DO things. And I want to not be scared to do them by myself. I got over that in Chi-town and I want to do it again. 
  8. And I need to at least seriously think about drinking, partying, hooking up, and how my rules about these things need to adapt to life in the real world. Not sure exactly how they should change yet--I might need to experience real world partying before I can make plans/rules for how to navigate it. 
Seems like life is full of a million possible reset buttons, some bigger than other.  

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