Just reading the 'staffer love' section in spopbook and seeing all the connections everyone else has made, I felt a heaviness within me that tugged at the seams of something that I can't see or understand yet.... Yet. I'm always too late in my realizations, always one step behind that which is the catalyst and the breaking point. Always the one stuck in neutral while everyone else just passes by. Last year I was the diva-in-training and I guess this year I've been slapped with the title of 'class clown,' something which has become a self-fulfilling prophesy of sorts. I won't deny my eagerness to cause laughter or garner a smile.... It's just that it's so much easier to laugh than to cry, and maybe I'm trying to mask this darkness with a facade of happiness and sunshine, but I've been thinking about it as I have in years past, and I can't keep up. Who am I to promote realness when I am lying to both myself and the world I'm in right now? For every laughing fit I've had, there was twice as much yearning in me to just cry. And who knows if tears would have even come out? I can't recall the last time I cried nor can anyone else, apparently. I'm straying and am all over the place, but the point is... I feel like I've given up potential connections and failed to help my fellow returners/peers once again or advised my lovely first years. I feel like I've done nothing of that sort, helped or affect anyone in any way, except to make them laugh. But what is laughter, honestly, except a momentary vacation from life's troubles. I've done nothing to alleviate or ameliorate such pains...
I've felt this feeling before, but I swore that that first would be the last. I had finished my summer in a state of disconnect, the ends of my days as frayed as can be, ties severed or missing or simply forgotten and faded. Have I done myself over again? Left myself with far more regrets than intended for the simple caution of playing it safe? So much hurt has come from this and yet, I'd brave it all all over again and then some just to feel what I've felt in the most fleeting of moments throughout this summer.
It's true... I hung out with Carol and Timmy last night and it was one of the chillest nights I've had in a while. We chilled for a bit with his spopper from last year, Michelle, whom I also know, just lounging on gravity-defying beds and admiring paper lanterns and walls and boxes of good music and art. We just... chilled. Pure conversation void of any expectation. Ahh, my favorite. As Carol napped away, Timmy and I chatted about whatever came our way-- from families to Teal to Gold. He had asked if 7 really was my TLOF [the last one, forever] and I told him that it was. He asked why and prefaced it with a "are you just over it?" which I suppose many people would assume of me. But I told him the real answer, which I guess was the unexpected, and talked about how I was supposed to go abroad this year to Cambridge and then finish my summer traveling through the south of France and one of my all-time favorite places ever, Monaco.
When I applied to be a returner, I did not get it. While others jumped for joy and reveled in happiness and others, who like me did not get the position, readied themselves in bitterness for a .75, I was indifferent. I can't say that I was hurt or disappointed or sad... I was indifferent. Who was I to know what kind of year Gold would be? It definitely wasn't going to be Teal and it definitely wasn't going to suck, but I couldn't feel feelings for experiences I knew nothing about. I didn't assume. But when they called me 2 weeks later and asked me if I would staff, I said 'Yes.' When everyone else was telling me to say 'No,' I said 'Yes.' I went with my gut. It was like I had unfinished business. While my heart and my plans and paperwork for summer all pointed to Europe, my gut said to try it one more time. And I did... and I don't and haven't regretted it for one second. When I told Timmy this, he seemed genuinely surprised. "Are you serious? You said 'no' to going abroad and traveling and all that good stuff... just for SPOP?" And I never had to justify and accept my decision for it til then; never realized just what this program meant to me in relation to others. I've had this conversation and realization with others before-- their slow and subtle insinuation that staffing meant being a good staffer, saying and doing the right things, and being in-line with the restrictions of the program. SPOP didn't mean free gifts, having an outlet to display my talents, lots of parties, hundreds more friends, or [for some] an excellent recruitment tool. Sure, there are numerous by-products such as self-realization, a better self-image and self-esteem, and changing fellow staffers' lives... SPOP for me meant leading the youth of today into the world of tomorrow with a comforting hand, a seasoned head, and an open heart... It meant complete faith in society and hope for the future... That a change for the better now meant a world of difference in the long run. Maybe I think on too grand a scale, that I assume my efforts will extend far beyond the reaches of this program, but I don't care. I've run the gamut of emotions and kept under wraps things that no one should know, dealt with issues that have jaded me even more, gave up precious time with my family and above all my mother, and forfeited hundreds of pictures, thousands of miles of landscape and lush, millions of faces and places, and dozens of experiences all for one simple thing. As I said, I would lose it all all over again and then some, as long as what I found in the sweetest and most fleeting of moments this summer would remain: hope.
And by-products? Self-realizations and mini-enlightenments? I'm past thinking those will ever happen to me. What's eating my insides and making me uneasy at this moment, however, are the people around me. I know that I've been coming out more this year than last, but it still doesn't feel like enough. Cliques and groups have formed once again and that is inevitable, but it's weird to know that although a returner, I have found myself once again on the outside looking in. I'm not worried about exclusion because that I have dealt with for years, but what I'm most worried about is worth and meaning. I honestly don't think these people understand just how much I value them or just how much they mean to me. Though I don't hang out with them 24/7 or have inside jokes aside from staffing, and definitely don't have regular routines with any of them, I would still give an arm and a leg and my entire heart for these people. I've seen how much affect they have and they, too, give me hope. These fellow staffers, these fellow human beings, these souls, they give me so much hope and they mean the absolute world to me in so many levels and ways. It's always difficult for me to convey my feelings, to show my true colors and my intent, but I wish they knew this. I pray they know this.
Round my hometown
Memories are fresh
Round my hometown
Ooh the people I've met
Are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of my world
- adele, 'hometown glory'
Memories are fresh
Round my hometown
Ooh the people I've met
Are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of my world
Are the wonders of this world
Summer school has started and the program is winding down.
This is where we begin to forget...
No comments:
Post a Comment