"I’m concerned that if I leave and start looking from the outside in, that I will not want to come back."
Notes to Self are long-form journal entries posted in full. See Seven Yrs Ago for thread. Read Wicked which includes this entry. I was 20 in late 2013.
I lack stability and/or consistency. My mood fluctuates and I can’t tell how I feel or how I will feel and I know that’s not helpful because feelings aren’t meant to be thought; they just are.
I can’t tell if this lack of stability will be resolved by
1) sticking to the course, keeping up a certain positive attitude, learning to deal with this constant stress (much is what I put myself thru) and sticking with my friends and the people around me, the community that I’m a part of. That’s actually true—I’m part of a community for once and it’s nice and meaningful to me for a change.
2) The other possible resolution is alternately, possibly crazy: moving to a nonstudio lifestyle, with new classes, new internships, new people to meet, new experiences to explore etc.
That certainly doesn’t equal stability but it’s like…
I’m in a rut (probably selfmade) so staying solid, staying stable, in a rut sounds bad since you’re basically not moving—you’re just there
What if architecture is causing me the instability, and therefore the absence of it will help me gain stability again?
I could leave and possibly find the stability in something else, something I was meant to have
BUT I DON’T KNOW. I don’t know.
I made the decision to drop studio so early on that naturally, I just want to move on to that plan and see how that goes.
Then of course I can’t withdraw due to technicalities with my financial aid and GPA and my dignity and all that and I get depressed cause I can’t move on now
But I need to keep moving forward even if it isn’t in the direction I want to go right now.
And anyway, my dad brought up the good point that I’ve worked this fucking hard and I used to like it and the job market right now is really scary so I should just finish it so it makes sense.
I want to finish the 5 year program. It’s an awesome degree; It’s taught me so much about life and myself.
Yet, I need to know what the end goal is for me. It’s like I enjoy it and I fuck around with it presently, but my future, careerwise and personal lifewise is so black. Like I need to know what actual life is like.
With career goals and shit. Like with making time for things, like for what I want to do, or at least what I want to try. For friends. For people. For sex. For that big question mark over my head about who I am, who I’m going to be, and what parts of who I was that I want to keep and what I should forget.
And the thinking.
I want a reason.
If I don’t think things are good now, and better than they have been before.
I’m concerned that if I leave and start looking from the outside in, that I will not want to come back.
I need to learn to adapt.
Not passively go along and accept things.
But really take in my environment and put something out there that belongs. Whether that’s thru my actions or my products. Most importantly my thinking.
I want to stay in the 5 year pg, but right now I need
1) some clarity on why I should stay
2) what I’m ultimately going to get out of it, as a degree, as an experience
3) an idea of how I want the rest of my life outside my career to be like once I get out of school and into the real world
I think I’ve been in a constant grind all my school life that I have no concept of how normal kids live/deal with work and real life.
Therefore it’s hard for me to tell if I will learn that by staying in studio and learning to normalize by seeing the other people around me OR by leaving studio for a bit and having instantly more free time, practically forcing myself to, and make that time for real life.
Yeah.
Middle school and high school was about surviving and getting out; college at first felt good because I was doing something difficult + interesting for myself at least.
Now I guess it’s another ‘survive and get out’ situation. What I really need is a reason to feel alive and stay.