I've been busy.
Things are big and hard and I am graduating from college in a month and a half. I feel vacant and full and uncertain and positive and sort of like the child who wears lipstick to feel like an adult and ends up taken advantage of because of it -- I am often at a loss.
I am busy. I have a job in the closest town to me -- It's a residential clinic for children who have been removed from traumatic homes. It's a school and a therapy program and state funded. It's a broke place, but rich in experience and giving. I am excited, but also, exhausted. I have been subbing there, preparing for the future. I am planning on moving into an apartment there in January with a friend of mine who graduated last year. It's all big and terrifying. I am terrified of being in control. Of making choices.
College was easy. It was beautiful and strenuous and sometimes it ached because I've never felt so scrutinized, so inferior, so small... and also so perfect, so divine, so incandescent. I guess everything you do is right. It just is. You can't make a wrong choice because all choices are you and therefore beautiful. I tell myself this when my heart beats too quickly at night. It does this a lot and so I have started to stretch myself into shapes before I go to sleep. I constantly fight between being fit and working my body to it's limit and being completely self-indulgent.
I have a volunteer position doing therapy play with another child who's on the autism spectrum. It's wild. I mimic him and play and fake opera voices and russian accents. It's exhausting, but lovely. I am trying to be a part of the community in this area, but that is always so hard when you're just a student.
But I'm about to not be.
It's very odd. My days are long and the seasons are changing quickly -- they say there might be snow tomorrow. The leaves are coating the grounds here and everything feels more constricted, like I can't breathe because it's too shocking to inhale. It's time for winterthings and I'm choking on scarves -- it's good though. I want candelight and secrets and quiet. But isn't that what I've always wanted? As this part of my life nears and nears its close I get so muddled about where I have been; sometimes I forget I ever lived in Walnut Creek. Sometimes I forget I have a middle name. These things seem strange.
Annnyyyyway, I am exhausted.
Sending you all love and well wishes. So much love.
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ReplyDeleteThis was amazing to read. I am surprised, but delighted, at your ability to work with children and all that. I wish I had a lighter heart, or more imagination, or something in order to do that. But kids scare the crap out of me. I totally admire you for that though :]
And I am not quite there - about to be facing the "real world" after graduating college - but I can understand your dread and excitement. I get that sometimes, at a lesser degree, and I still have many miles to go.
I also wish fall would arrive here sooner. This week it's been remarkably colder and the leaves are turning and dropping, but it's not full blown yet.
Sending you love back. I am glad to hear (read?) from you again.
Your writing is so beautiful, Luna. I feel like you transcribed your soul for us, to see the essence of who you are right this moment (thankyou). You are beautiful.
ReplyDeleteThe work you are doing is so meaningful. I bet you are touching those kids' lives in ways you don't even realize. I know you expressed a lot of worries and exhaustion, but I find myself envying you. You've grown so much and are creating an admirable life for yourself.
I love your mantra, 'everything you do is right' (and beautiful)-- I see and feel this, too. Keep telling yourself this!
I wish I could join you for secrets and quiet and candlelight, I wish so much that I could. When is your graduation ceremony? When will I see you again? I miss and love you a lot a lot.
Sending you love and well wishes back <3