Responsibility

I had two doctor's appointments and a dentist appointment in the last week. These included two inoculations, by choice, one being the ever controversial HPV/cervical cancer vaccine. I paid my rent today, early, made a hair appointment and went shopping to take careful advantage of a sale. Yesterday included sending in my absentee ballot and making a deposit to my money market account for grad school. I start each day with a multivitamin and carefully track my eating habits.

Somehow, I've become a responsible adult. WTF?

Actually, it really does kind of disturb me that my life has started to resemble my parents'. The growth rate of my 401k is important to me, but I don't really understand why. I've always hated doctors, but I find myself willingly putting myself through tests and injections. I have a sudden pleasure in planning things, whether it be lunch for the next day at work or how to spend the rest of my life. Life may be less interesting now than it ever was while in college, but the stability seems to be working for me. I just wish I understood what is going on.

I'm preparing to turn 24 in the near future, but seem to be going on 54. The sudden nesting instinct is honestly a little scary to the person who doesn't believe in marriage. The planning of my life after grad school seems premature to the part of me who likes to take things as they come. I don't know what country I'll be living in a year from now, but that hasn't stopped me from coming up with a list of companies for my internship summer in 2009.

I guess I feel torn. I feel like I want to be young an irresponsible, but am obligated to be conscientious and stable. I want to drive all night to have breakfast with a friend before driving back, but feel constrained by the price of gas and quantities of time involved. i want to call in sick to work on days when I stayed up too late, but worry about living up to my boss's expectations. I consider requesting an assignment near Boston, but consider cost of living and sabotaged career progression and delete the e-mail. The feeling of being in my twenties is being drained out of me through living alone and trying to start a career. How am I supposed to balance not wasting my youth with the newfound responsibility?

I need to know before I waste any more of it.

Plot and Themes

I'm hoping this enthusiasm for writing a novel continues when I actually get to the writing part of it. For now, though, I'm reveling in the enthusiasm of the Lexington writing community and outlining my novel at coffee shops and cafes around town. It's an excellent way to spend a cloudy, chill fall's day. I may be cursing it by the end of November, but for now I can hardly contain myself. I assume I will basically fall out of communication as I descend into my imagined world, but I will emerge again in December in time for the holiday madness.

Choosing a plot over the past week has been a challenge. One's first instinct is to write about themselves or personal experiences. I toyed with the idea of recreating a fictional partner year type of experience, written from different perspectives. I thought about a coming of age story of a college student in Boston. I considered a painful account of high school from the always-persecuted underdog. All of these bothered me, too solipsistic and egotistical. I thought about my favorite authors and what about them that I love. Recent reading of Snowcrash and Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom left me loving the techno-future, but without the imagination required not to plagiarize blatantly. The Life of Pi and other such epic tales left me desiring a single, unbroken, minimalist narrative, but this seems out of my reach and beyond my meager skills.

Finally, I came upon what I hope will be able to sustain my writing for a month while reading Craig's List one night, that being, the varied stories contained by Craig's List. It is my muse and inspiration. From it, I plan to write a modern Canterbury Tales, tied together by a socially-inept internet addict/code monkey. The theme of electronic isolationism and connection will be strung throughout tales of modern life which include subthemes wandering from modern sexuality to ethics to family life. If nothing else, now when I find myself on Craig's List it's no longer procrastination. It's research.

Write on

Last night I finally decided that this November I will be participating in NaNoWriMo. I will be attempting to write a novel. In a month. November is going to be wonderful.

In reality, this has been a long time coming. I used to write before college, putting pen to paper for fiction, poetry, personal essays, and non-fiction whenever the whim struck. I always thought my essays were what got me admitted to college. I prided myself on writing and the self-expression it entailed. When I got to college, I gave up my personal interests in interest of passing my classes. The last two years, I've watched my extremely talented brother complete NaNoWriMo and felt the stirring of longing. Now, in post-collegiate life, I find myself with vast quantities of time. Time which I am not necessarily using to the maximum of its ability. Further, I recently passed my halfway mark in Kentucky and still seem to be lacking community. So last night, I registered for National Novel Writing Month, and with it, plan to solve my woes. I may not complete my novel, but I will meet interesting people, hone my writing skills, find an outlet for my self-expression, and put my time to better use along the way.

I am currently taking advice, encouragement, possible novel topics and challengers.

November is going to be wonderful.

Not ours

Since graduation in May, I’ve been back to Olin a couple times, most recently this past weekend. Although the college building experience was often painful, it was something I felt I was truly contributing to, something that I could consider mine. Leaving for the real world was something I looked forward to, until it actually came time to leave. I admit it: I cried. I was leaving the place that had been my home, my closest friends and my significant other, but I was also leaving my most proud creation, my very own college.

After the initial departure, life more or less stabilized. I still manage to stay in contact with the friends who matter and have started to make new ones in my new location. I’ve made a home for myself with a wonderful couch and fabulous kitchen. The distance hasn’t yet damaged my relationship. Yet I can’t say I’ve completely moved on.

I still read articles about Olin. I keep up with the news on campus. I feel compelled to defend Olin when people ignorantly insult it around me. I still feel Olin is mine, but I am quickly coming to the realization that it is not. Life on campus has progressed without the Class of 2006, morphing into something recognizable, but not familiar. New clubs exist and CORe functions in new ways, but it’s difficult to let go.

Difficult, yes, but not impossible. This week I made a major break through in living my post-Olin life. While I still cling to friends made and follow the news, I’ve taken a step back. When an incendiary post on Aaron Swartz’s blog brought out the Olin defenders, I realized it was not my place to respond to the accusations against the college in such an arena. It’s no longer my college to have, but neither is it mine to defend.

Connection

I planned to go to the grocery this evening around midnight, but instead found myself lost in the internet world of news groups until 12:30, when my phone rang. It's unusual that anyone aside from my family or Simon calls, much less after midnight. I expected it to be a drunk dial from some past friend when the caller id flashed a Texas number. Already awake, I decided to go ahead and indulge the late night caller.

"Hello?"
"Hi Kim, how are you?"
pause...pause...
"Fine, but who are you?"
"David."
"Little David?"
"Yes."

And like that, the smartest person I've ever known walked back into my life. A painful break up long behind us, the ensuing conversation flowed freely from life updates and future plans to life philosophies, religion, and causes for happiness. After I lost all my cell phone numbers last week, he was on the list of people I figured I would probably never hear from again. It makes the reunion sweeter. A year and a half without contact seems like it had never happened. Magic.