Monday, December 12, 2011

Lying on my stomach on the dirty kitchen floor.

Walking home from campus tonight, I was struck yet again, by the mountains darkening the skyline. The thought "You live in Utah now" popped into my head and for what felt like the thousandth time this semester, I was struck by the surreal nature of this college experience.

You'd think I would have grasped the concept by now.

I sometimes still feel like a little girl teetering in mommy's too big high heels and tripping over a "borrowed" dress, lipstick smeared across my face. When I was little, my dad could always tell what my mom had done during the day, because I'd drag chairs around the house as she moved from chore to chore. I'd climb up on the chairs so that I could be at grown-up level. I still feel like I'm dragging chairs around, trying to be more grown up.  I always thought that I'd feel older, wiser, and more mature when I came to college, but as a good friend once told me, "you can send a girl to college, but her favorite things don't have to change."  This, of course, was in response to a reference I made to Disney movies and fruit snacks.

I feel like I've been in Provo forever. Sometimes high school and life in Kentucky feels more like a dream than a part of my past. There have been times when I've momentarily blanked when asked where I'm from. And then when I come up with the three syllables that describe the place I lived for fourteen years of my life, I feel disconnected from it. Kind of the way I felt in the third grade and a classmate was telling us about his trip to visit his aunt in Maryland and I didn't know where Maryland was. I'd never even heard of it.

And of course, none of that makes any sense when juxtaposed with the fact that this whole college thing hasn't quite sunken in yet. But, then again, very little about my life or who I am makes sense. And I kind of like it that way.Life wouldn't be any fun if it could be packed up into a neat little box and easily shipped away.

I'm pretty sure that none of this makes any sense. My poor, addled little brain is begging me to express what I'm feeling in a coherent manner, but it is giving up after a long day of studying, test taking, and soap carving. My brain deserves a high five for valiant effort, though.

Mmkay. Well I have no clever little phrase to sum up and conclude, so I'm just going to stop now.

The End.

1 comment:

  1. I understand completely... sometimes I see people and have to think whether i know them from Kentucky or Iowa. A very, almost unsettling, odd feeling....

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