Ramblings.
I can feel things changing. Got a haircut today… mostly a trim, cleaning up the scruffy ends. A bit of layering. Long bangs. I likee.
I smell aftershave. It’s one of those smells that’s disorienting to me… a lot of charged memories. High school dances and happenstances and all that angst… add to that the soundtrack of some of the most charged and you come up with a rather emotional mindset tonight. Bought Rent (2-disc) and Aida via Amazon last week, they arrived Monday and I’ve been hearing them in my head ever since.
Not down, not hyper… just… feeling close to the surface. What is it about my showtunes that makes them pop up again and again? Especially, what is it about them that brings everything to the surface?
Sophomore year – hearing Contact (from Rent) for the first time in Lexie’s car, all those screwed up relationships and misunderstandings. And we mustn’t forget the three days with Young Americans and questioning the need for song and just how deep it went… so many associations.
Senior year – the Nordhoff concert with the Rent and Miss Saigon medleys…
Dorm year – yeah. We’ll just leave it at that reference.
The cumulative effect leaves me with a list of songs and stories with so many layers of association and meaning. And when I get triggered like this, I don’t even know what emotion it is, it’s just close to the surface. Weird stuff.
Of course, all the questioning and percolating… I hate not having large reasons for things – I mean, if it were as simple as money, I’d have the decision made. But no no, that’s not the issue this time. Ugh. I could cram it all in this summer and fall, still get out on time, but it’s not that simple. For once I think I can afford to do it however I want… but it’s all down to what I *want* to do. And that makes me scared. I know it’ll work out either way.
Assuming I graduate in June, I want to go get my job immediately. I’m hitting the point where I’m ready to move on from Davis, or at least the undergraduate lifestyle. And it feels like it’s a relatively sudden readiness… so that’s disorienting too. I feel like I just got settled, and now I’m thinking short-term again.
So… I could go to Ireland and make my senior year a little more compressed… I do intend to graduate in June. I think it’s a reasonable commitment that I’ve made – a challenge I want to take on. I could get rid of a requirement or two or three over the summer and give myself enough time to do choir (class time permitting of course) ’cause I’ve been missing it this quarter. I guess the senioritis is coming right on schedule. And there’s another whiff of whatever that smell is. And I’m back at Villanova, looking toward what’s next, at Montessori dreaming of being old enough to do these things I’m doing now….
Regardless of where I go this summer, it’s my last of being an undergrad student and thus slightly youth-ish. I don’t think I’ll have as much freedom after this – certainly no more summers off, since I’m not planning on becoming a schoolteacher soon. So. Travel abroad or make the most of the conferences that are still available to me? Experience something new and scary, or stay with what I know that I love?
What’s that scent? I don’t know how to follow my nose.
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