Hello everyone!
I am back in Minnesota, sitting on the floor as per usual :). So many habits I’ve picked up this summer at my MIT frat—starting with plopping down in front of the biggest fan possible, back when we didn’t have air conditioning. And checking for toilet paper before entering the bathroom, and cleaning up after I cook something, and cooking something (my mother is particularly impressed with that), and figuring out things that are not working on my own, and walking miles and miles on the weekends. Also, the magazines in the bathroom have rather different content in them, and the carpets are much nicer. It’s good to be back :).
It’s funny, because this isn’t the place I immediately think of when I think “home”, but it’s by far my most comfortable place to be. I can walk over to my neighbors’ houses, over springy green lawns, mowed along the straight line of the road instead of cobblestones creased with cigarette butts. I can head over to garage sales filled with nice furniture, instead of uncomfortably passing by the homeless as they rattle their plastic cups. I can look out the back window and see fresh greens from the garden, not be on the lookout for mold in all the vegetables I buy. People are mostly of the same class where I’ve grown up, and from the same race, and you don’t see anyone drunkenly dancing out of a bus, or women walking as fast as they can as soon as night falls.
My friend Tiffany just returned from Spain, filled with new experiences from volunteering with cerebral palsy patients there. I feel like I’ve had new experiences too, but by seeking out people who are more like me. I’ve loved the academic corner of Boston, where everyone next to you is reading the scientific literature on their Nooks, or dressed in scrubs. I’ve grown closer to a few Wellesley people, and we will all return to our lovely, sheltered campus. The kind of science we do is intrinsically ivory-tower, so though I’ve advanced in my career goals, that can hardly have been said to broadened my understanding of the world. It’s not that I’m unhappy that I’ve not been unduly forced out of my comfort zone—I’m just a bit worried :).
When I was in high school, I had a rule that some kind of personal crisis would happen every six months or so. Whenever I was feeling too comfortable, I would be alert to whoever sparked it for me—often my mother, who called me on social mistakes or wandering dedication or whatever it was that I had done inappropriately. They were my best learning moments, and since then they’ve come once a year or so. Still, sometimes I miss being sent off to a strange summer camp, or to college, or even overseas—it’s hard, and I’m very rarely relaxed in such situations, but I know that when I’ve come back that I’m someone a little bit new.
Then again, what has drawn me to this uneasiness is that I am comfortable in Boston, and in Wellesley, almost as much as I am at home. My transitions are easier. Perhaps that’s a sign that I’ve become more adaptable as a person, as much as that my locations are all familiar. Perhaps surrounding myself with international students, living in the city, living in a fraternity, making some new friends… perhaps that’s enough. Perhaps I won’t fall into being close-minded, or not embracing new people and new places. Or perhaps I should be reading the news more, or pushing harder to learn something different, or meeting different types of people. I don’t know.
When I tell people I’m going home, for “three whole weeks! What am I even going to do?” the most startling response I’ve heard is “Relax, Monica.” Yet I feel I’ve been relaxing this whole summer—I’ve been working, yes, but I had weekends off, and I even had evenings off! It’s insane how much free time I had… and what do I do with it? I read, watched TV, hung out with friends. I didn’t broaden my horizons, I cemented them. That’s what relaxing is—enjoying the time, enjoying it when we’re most comfortable, when everything is easy :).
And yet, if I’ve learned anything in college, it’s that nothing is all-or-nothing :). No one has a straight path, it’s all about balance, and you’ll be led down paths you’d never imagined if you just reach out for the opportunities. And soon enough I’ll be back in school, with a schedule that plans every minute of my day, and unexpected things will happen, and I’ll have my personal crisis again. And if I want to work a little harder, put my neck out there and try something new, all the kudos to me :).
So here’s to the balance between working and vacation, hard work and easy, success and contentment, glass half full of air. I predict that it’s my time to do what everyone tells me, and relax like a good little Wellesley student :). But if you do have questions about any aspect of college life, please comment, and I’ll write a post on it next week—because if you know me like I do, you know that I’m never quite relaxed with easy :).
Hope you all have a marvelous rest of the summer, and comments make my day, as always!
Monica