Taking Stock
Posted on | February 23, 2009 | No Comments
Ginny, a friend from Florida, is visiting this week. Actually, she’s on the train to Seattle at the moment, but I have been able to steal a few minutes here and there with her. She’s staying with Amandapants, and it’s been a blast. Having her here made me really take stock of what’s going on in my life. That old phrase – the more things change….well it struck me when we were talking about how the years have played out for us. Graduating in ’07, I think we were all a little naive as to what was waiting for us out in the world. Rollins College is a spectacular place, filled with amazing professors, lovely landscapes and really neat wild cats (they have swirly fur). But it’s a little like a commune. The reality is, outside of Rollins, no one cares how hard we busted our asses in Dr. Law’s Grammar class, or how much we learned from Leslie Boles in her Renaissance Art classes. You don’t know how funny Dr. Seay was, nor how scary Dr. Levitz could be (we got along famously, but his reputation intimidated). No one cares because they weren’t with us when the hurricanes hit, tearing down some of the stately oaks at the front entrance. They didn’t watch the renovation of the art building, or watch those trees move from the back of campus to the front, snarling traffic for days. Those moments are ours, mine. They cannot be replicated.
While talking with Ginny, I realized I could never go home again.
Home is here in Portland, but the intensity of those experiences cannot be duplicated. I’m more isolated here. I don’t have school as a jumping off point. I can’t seem to keep a job with people who share my ideas (although I have met some really amazing people). But I can keep trying.
I am so far removed from who I was the day I graduated. But a huge part of that woman – sweaty, nervous, slightly befuddled that she’d actually made it, is still in me. So I don’t have that anchor of school to root me into place, giving me an easy identity. I must make my own. That’s the harder part. Right now, without a job, I have to define who I am. No matter how much I write, the idea of calling myself an “author” is terrifying. I am only slightly comfortable calling myself a writer. But that’s what I’m doing right now – writing and editing.
This post has become a little meandering in its meaning, but I guess what I really mean is – I’m very glad Ginny and Amanda and I have been able to hang out. I’m glad I experienced a Masskrug, and a housewarming party. I’m thrilled at the thought of one more afternoon talking about our lives, but right now, with Ginny on the train to Seattle, and me with a dark office, and the uneven cadence of falling rain – I must be a writer, because if I take stock, that’s really what I have been all along.
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