I used to be happy with the person I am. Especially over the last year or so, I became more and more confident. When I was staying in Alaska, I met so many new people in all sorts of situations, I made so many friends, in so many situations.
There was one girl named Randi who worked in the visitor centre in Palmer. I stopped in there for a while one day while I had explored the entire town (Palmer and Wasilla being the biggest "cities" in the area, even then they only had populations of around three or four thousand people.) I was waiting for my aunt to finish work nearby, so I hung out looking at the tiny museum they had in the visitor centre, spending as much time as possible so I wouldn't have to go outside and wait in the cold.
Anyway, after she asked how I was and noticed my English accent, me and Randi got talking, for about an hour at least (it wasn't very busy in the visitor centre that day) and we swapped numbers. She was the same age as me, and she was starting Uni in the autumn too, she was going all the way to Boston to study music, she was already in an awesome jazz band. We were going to go to a local festival together but in the end she couldn't make it and my aunt and uncle had planned something else that weekend - a party and cookout up at their cabin with a few of their friends.
In fact, I wrote about that party on this same blog back in July 2008 when I was there:
"On Saturday, Fran and Jack threw a party up at their cabin – loads of people were invited but not many turned up; Fran was a bit slow in confirming the date and giving directions, and a lot of people were going off to some event out of town."
One woman my aunt knew bought her daughter, Claire, who was about the same age as me, so we had some fun and went out to canoe on their lake. She had to leave early though, to go to a rave in Anchorage - which she did invite me to but I knew my aunt wouldn't have let me. (Even though I was already 18, she was quite protective because I was not her daughter and she felt responsible for me.) I did see Claire a few other times, she was awesome and I need to get back in touch with her.
I was getting kind of bored when two guys who were about 19 showed up, expecting a massive party with loads of young people, but there were only a few of us and no-one else at the party even knew them (it turned out a woman my aunt invited couldn't make it but thought it would be a big party so sent her son and his friend anyway). It was my lucky day, cause being the only one there under 30, I was getting kind of bored. And because of both that, and the fact I was by default an interesting person - simply by being a cute English girl - these guys were practically kissing my feet and I got them both to roast me lots of marshmallows, make me lots of smores, and row me round the entire lake twice. One of them ended up calling me back a few days later and for one week I got a lot of free visits to funfairs, restaurants and cinemas out of that guy, as well as totally pissing my aunt off by going back to his place and not quite coming back home in time for her curfew.
Another day I went into Anchorage to go shopping and hang out with two girls I'd never met before, which came about because one of them was thinking of going to university in England and her mum knew my aunt, so they arranged a meeting for us. All of these people got my number (I had a temporary "cell phone" my aunt gave me for me to use out there, so I've lost contact with them all now) and I saw most of them again.
When I worked at the field school in Canada I was thrown into close living conditions with about 8 other students (they'd all graduated from different U.S. universities, all about 3 or 4 years older than me), at camp you have to get up at 6am, work, cook, eat, get muddy and play together until about 2am, with no breaks for solitude and you make friends very quickly. The whole experience was cold, muddy, and awesome fun. By the end of the week, none of us were sleeping cold or alone in our tents, everyone at camp seemed to pair off with someone of the opposite sex. It was often unclear whether the noise coming from outside your tent was a moose, or just another couple "keeping warm"...
(My aunt was extremely annoyed to find my little tent empty when she came to pick me up at the end of the week and things were tense for nearly our whole road trip, which turned out to be less fun than it could have been - because I also caught glandular fever along with everyone else at the camp. Which was a) because everyone was sleeping with eachother and b) because we all ate out of the same pot, never had enough water to wash our hands, and shared muddy utensils which never got washed up with warm water.)
It's ridiculous how many friends I made in two months, in a totally alien place where I knew no-one. I didn't look super cool, I wore scruffy clothes to keep warm most of the time, but over there people didn't judge you on your clothes, your taste in music, or anything else (apart from your political views, which you should definitely keep shut about in the States).
I came home from Alaska more confident and friendly than ever. I couldn't wait to meet new people, I wanted to smile and say hi to people I saw at shops and bus stops, I wanted to chat and make friends with everyone. I had great exam results and I couldn't wait to come to uni.
I've been here for about 4 months now, I've met hundreds of people and had so many new experiences. But I still haven't made any close friends. I didn't even realise this for a while. I was swept up in the tumultuous wave of socialising and events, surrounded by plenty of people to go to go out with to house parties and nights out. Now I don't want to do that, and I don't have enough money to, I just want someone to chill out with and chat to about anything and everything in my room. I am a crazy, weird and lively person, I always have been, and my friends were about the same, I could say and do any random thing I had an impulse to do, and we'd all laugh together.
I used to be happy with the person I am.
In a way, I still love me. I step outside of myself and look at myself as though I were someone else. I see an awesome person that is a lot of fun to be with. I see someone small but cute and playful with a weird sense of humour, the kind of person I just want to hug and have good times with. If I could meet myself, we'd get on great and we'd be best friends. The fact I think about that quite often just proves what a mental case I am.
The trouble is, I don't want to change. I like being myself. I don't want to put on an act. When I think of something interesting or fun, I want to say it, or do it. If I'm on a beach listening to music through my headphones, or if I hear a funky band playing in town, and I feel like getting up and dancing, I want to do it. Why should I have to care what other people think? I bet plenty of people feel like dancing in public sometimes, the difference between them and me is that they will stop themselves, and I won't.
It's such a short life, why should I refrain from doing things I want to do just because other people might think it's silly or weird. Why should I let others kill my personal fun and happiness just because they are scared to enjoy life themselves, for fear of what other people will think of them? Because of this outlook on life, I am now struggling with myself. I'm not having fun anymore, because people don't have fun with me. It's not fun being this person when no-one else seems to understand.
I've lost my self-esteem. I've lost my friendliness. I'm not the lively person I used to be. I'm an unwatered, neglected plant, starving for attention and encouragement. I'm the dying embers at the bottom of a fire whose warmth is no longer appreciated. Am I doing something wrong? At first I thought I might not be looking hard enough, but now feel like I might be damaging things further by thinking too deeply about frienship. Do I need to change who I am?
I feel like I'm being slightly selfish by writing this, because it's not true that I have no-one here. There is a very lovely person next door to me who I appreciate and care about very much. But I sometimes worry that because of the person I am, even they would be happier without me.
It's been a long post today and I don't expect anyone to read all this. But just by writing some of these things down instead of being caught in an endless loop of inner self-reflection, I feel calmer and my eyes are now dry.
There was one girl named Randi who worked in the visitor centre in Palmer. I stopped in there for a while one day while I had explored the entire town (Palmer and Wasilla being the biggest "cities" in the area, even then they only had populations of around three or four thousand people.) I was waiting for my aunt to finish work nearby, so I hung out looking at the tiny museum they had in the visitor centre, spending as much time as possible so I wouldn't have to go outside and wait in the cold.
Anyway, after she asked how I was and noticed my English accent, me and Randi got talking, for about an hour at least (it wasn't very busy in the visitor centre that day) and we swapped numbers. She was the same age as me, and she was starting Uni in the autumn too, she was going all the way to Boston to study music, she was already in an awesome jazz band. We were going to go to a local festival together but in the end she couldn't make it and my aunt and uncle had planned something else that weekend - a party and cookout up at their cabin with a few of their friends.
In fact, I wrote about that party on this same blog back in July 2008 when I was there:
"On Saturday, Fran and Jack threw a party up at their cabin – loads of people were invited but not many turned up; Fran was a bit slow in confirming the date and giving directions, and a lot of people were going off to some event out of town."
One woman my aunt knew bought her daughter, Claire, who was about the same age as me, so we had some fun and went out to canoe on their lake. She had to leave early though, to go to a rave in Anchorage - which she did invite me to but I knew my aunt wouldn't have let me. (Even though I was already 18, she was quite protective because I was not her daughter and she felt responsible for me.) I did see Claire a few other times, she was awesome and I need to get back in touch with her.
I was getting kind of bored when two guys who were about 19 showed up, expecting a massive party with loads of young people, but there were only a few of us and no-one else at the party even knew them (it turned out a woman my aunt invited couldn't make it but thought it would be a big party so sent her son and his friend anyway). It was my lucky day, cause being the only one there under 30, I was getting kind of bored. And because of both that, and the fact I was by default an interesting person - simply by being a cute English girl - these guys were practically kissing my feet and I got them both to roast me lots of marshmallows, make me lots of smores, and row me round the entire lake twice. One of them ended up calling me back a few days later and for one week I got a lot of free visits to funfairs, restaurants and cinemas out of that guy, as well as totally pissing my aunt off by going back to his place and not quite coming back home in time for her curfew.
Another day I went into Anchorage to go shopping and hang out with two girls I'd never met before, which came about because one of them was thinking of going to university in England and her mum knew my aunt, so they arranged a meeting for us. All of these people got my number (I had a temporary "cell phone" my aunt gave me for me to use out there, so I've lost contact with them all now) and I saw most of them again.
When I worked at the field school in Canada I was thrown into close living conditions with about 8 other students (they'd all graduated from different U.S. universities, all about 3 or 4 years older than me), at camp you have to get up at 6am, work, cook, eat, get muddy and play together until about 2am, with no breaks for solitude and you make friends very quickly. The whole experience was cold, muddy, and awesome fun. By the end of the week, none of us were sleeping cold or alone in our tents, everyone at camp seemed to pair off with someone of the opposite sex. It was often unclear whether the noise coming from outside your tent was a moose, or just another couple "keeping warm"...
(My aunt was extremely annoyed to find my little tent empty when she came to pick me up at the end of the week and things were tense for nearly our whole road trip, which turned out to be less fun than it could have been - because I also caught glandular fever along with everyone else at the camp. Which was a) because everyone was sleeping with eachother and b) because we all ate out of the same pot, never had enough water to wash our hands, and shared muddy utensils which never got washed up with warm water.)
It's ridiculous how many friends I made in two months, in a totally alien place where I knew no-one. I didn't look super cool, I wore scruffy clothes to keep warm most of the time, but over there people didn't judge you on your clothes, your taste in music, or anything else (apart from your political views, which you should definitely keep shut about in the States).
I came home from Alaska more confident and friendly than ever. I couldn't wait to meet new people, I wanted to smile and say hi to people I saw at shops and bus stops, I wanted to chat and make friends with everyone. I had great exam results and I couldn't wait to come to uni.
I've been here for about 4 months now, I've met hundreds of people and had so many new experiences. But I still haven't made any close friends. I didn't even realise this for a while. I was swept up in the tumultuous wave of socialising and events, surrounded by plenty of people to go to go out with to house parties and nights out. Now I don't want to do that, and I don't have enough money to, I just want someone to chill out with and chat to about anything and everything in my room. I am a crazy, weird and lively person, I always have been, and my friends were about the same, I could say and do any random thing I had an impulse to do, and we'd all laugh together.
I used to be happy with the person I am.
In a way, I still love me. I step outside of myself and look at myself as though I were someone else. I see an awesome person that is a lot of fun to be with. I see someone small but cute and playful with a weird sense of humour, the kind of person I just want to hug and have good times with. If I could meet myself, we'd get on great and we'd be best friends. The fact I think about that quite often just proves what a mental case I am.
The trouble is, I don't want to change. I like being myself. I don't want to put on an act. When I think of something interesting or fun, I want to say it, or do it. If I'm on a beach listening to music through my headphones, or if I hear a funky band playing in town, and I feel like getting up and dancing, I want to do it. Why should I have to care what other people think? I bet plenty of people feel like dancing in public sometimes, the difference between them and me is that they will stop themselves, and I won't.
It's such a short life, why should I refrain from doing things I want to do just because other people might think it's silly or weird. Why should I let others kill my personal fun and happiness just because they are scared to enjoy life themselves, for fear of what other people will think of them? Because of this outlook on life, I am now struggling with myself. I'm not having fun anymore, because people don't have fun with me. It's not fun being this person when no-one else seems to understand.
I've lost my self-esteem. I've lost my friendliness. I'm not the lively person I used to be. I'm an unwatered, neglected plant, starving for attention and encouragement. I'm the dying embers at the bottom of a fire whose warmth is no longer appreciated. Am I doing something wrong? At first I thought I might not be looking hard enough, but now feel like I might be damaging things further by thinking too deeply about frienship. Do I need to change who I am?
I feel like I'm being slightly selfish by writing this, because it's not true that I have no-one here. There is a very lovely person next door to me who I appreciate and care about very much. But I sometimes worry that because of the person I am, even they would be happier without me.
It's been a long post today and I don't expect anyone to read all this. But just by writing some of these things down instead of being caught in an endless loop of inner self-reflection, I feel calmer and my eyes are now dry.
2 comments:
Rebekah, It is really hard to be transplanted to a new place. When people start college, everyone is in the same boat.
I hated uni initially, part of the reason was that I (like you) had taken a year out. I traveled around the middle east by myself, met the most amazing people, and had wonderful adventures. I came back home feeling confident and excited, and most of all myself.
When I started uni, I felt like I didn't really fit. That everyone else wasn't being genuine. I had many of the same feelings as you. It does take time. It took me a year to settle in.
If you want to dance, dance. Be who you are. Has anyone commented negatively? If not, maybe it is just you feeling like they will. If they did - does it really matter? People are attracted to happy confidence. Be brave and do your thing. Treat Brighton like you treated Canada. You do not have to stick to campus. Talk to people in interesting places. Be open. Don't worry. Most of all be interested in them - that is the most engaging thing of all.
Rebekah you sound like a lovely and interesting person. If I was your age, and in Brighton, you would be my friend.
On a final note - maybe all these other people are in their rooms feeling exactly as you are.
Awww, no... you can't lose your awesome crazy running through fountains for the hell of it personality! I command you to do crazy stuff as you like, and the people you know who laugh instead of rolling their eyes are the ones you should keep hanging out with... I think if you stop acting like the real you then of course you won't make so many friends, because if you aren't being you, you're being too introverted and don't have enough experience with that personality to make an impression on people and thus get friends.
I found it so weird going to Chi and coming from our demented mindset finding all these... normal people. The people I'm hanging out with now are basically the loudest, most outspoken people in our seminars just because they're the ones more willing to talk, so I don't feel insane talking non-stop like I do with most of the people here, because they actually know how to talk back. :/ I never realised until I went to university than some people really... don't talk back when you start talking at them. I've scared off as many people as I've befriended, but I feel that for all the people who gave me a strange look, or laughed and ditched me as soon as they could, managing to find 3 people who actually think on a similar wavelength was worth it. So basically... don't be scared to be yourself... I don't know how you'll deal with turning people away from you, but you're cuter and smaller than me, so you're less likely to do that anyway. But just don't dwell on it when it happens, and focus on the people who you don't scare off, so you can start building up people around you who won't be alarmed when you start air guitaring madly to something stuck in your head. :P
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