behold, the Virgo-ness

I'm a list kind of girl. Before packing for any kind of trip, I make a list of every little thing I plan on shoving in a suitcase and cross them off the list as I pack. When I have several things to do at work and start to feel overwhelmed with them, I make a list and slash through them as they're accomplished. It's not the speed with which I complete the tasks on any given list, it's being able to see the confirmation of my accomplishments. And since I have a tendency to forget things like a senile old woman standing outside her house thinking, "where the hell do I live?", it just helps to know what I need to get done.

This is the first page of a two-page "to do" list I made...jesus, quite a few years ago. When reading through it, I found that I can cross off "go to Chinatown" without even having realized I accomplished that one, which is a delightful feeling. On page two, I found "become a rape crisis counselor," which I've been doing now for about a year and a half. Thankfully, there are a few more things crossed off on the second page than there are on this first page and there are things on this page I no longer care about. I couldn't care less about owning a pair of expensive shoes since I generally hate things on my feet and I certainly am never going to suffer the physical pain of wearing 3-inch heels for the sake of making my feet look prettier or my legs longer. Is owning a pair going to make me a better person? No. So not only would it be a waste of my money, it would be a waste of my energy. I also don't have much of a desire to learn the saxophone anymore but I think I may replace that one with "relearn playing the flute." I'll shuffle things around a bit as a few experiences (go camping and play hide 'n seek) are things I've already done but have enjoyed and would like to do again. It's always good to re-examine one's priorities. And of course, I'll add some newbies to the list.

For quite some time now, for a number of reasons I could list and a number of reasons I don't even realize, I've let the list fall by the wayside. It's been hanging on my refrigerator exactly as it is in this photo for over a year. That's a year of having a constant reminder of random little and not-so-little things I want to do in life taunting me from my tiny little kitchen.

Fuck that. Hell, not everything on the list even takes a great deal of effort on my part. How difficult is it to add a movie to my Netflix queue and spend two hours watching it once it gets here? Not very. Other things like traveling and the very few experiences that involve someone else (having sex with myself couldn't be nearly as enjoyable as shared public indecency) will take quite a bit more effort than those I can accomplish entirely on my own. But the point has never been to just do the things that are simple or take little effort. The point has been to do the things I want to do. To put in whatever amount of energy and effort it takes to just do them.

And I haven't. So to that, as I said a paragraph ago in my ever-so-classy way, fuck that.

finally, a chance to use the Buffy cookie dough analogy!

My father asked me once what I think are the best choices I've made for myself so far in life. It didn't take me a minute to answer him: 1. going to St. Bonaventure, 2. moving to Chicago, 3. my trip to Portland / Seattle.

Until this past weekend, I hadn't been back to Bonaventure since the day my parents and I packed up my little Ford Escort and their cars and moved me back to Penn Yan. I've always wanted to go back but not for an alumni function or anything, just...for me.

I haven't kept in touch with my college friends much until finding them all on Facebook. Even now, it's a Facebook type of friendship where we have a little interaction on there and that's it. But there are very few things about my four years there that I look back on with anything less than supreme fondness.

For a girl whose family has always meant the world to her, moving to school was a bitch for me. In a lot of ways, it was harder than moving 12 hours away and here to Chicago. Like a lot of people headed off to college, it was the first time I lived away from my family and my closest friends. My friend Catie and I had breakfast the morning before we were headed off and I remember standing at our cars afterward, hugging and crying and my telling her she was the one I really didn't want to leave.

It was the first time I lived up close and personal with complete strangers. I met people and we had a blast and we went to classes (for the most part) and we grew into the people most of us probably thought we'd never become. I remember little things about my time at school; the time we got into trouble for drinking in our dorm room the first night of our sophomore year, the time we took booze and my friend wore my green bathrobe to class for St. Patrick's Day, the time we almost started a fire in the lounge, the first time we got high with the Hot R.A. But when I think about the years spent there collectively, I remember the person I felt I was when I got there and the person I knew I was the morning I left. And I'm still amazed.

Our visit last weekend affected me more than I had prepared myself for and I think it's because it was really time for me to go back. Until recently, I've felt like someone completely other than who I know myself to be and I was ready for a reminder of just how far I've come since I hugged my parents and they told me they're just a phone call and two hours away.

For me, college really was the beginning of figuring out who I am. It was the first time I realized I could truly make it on my own (as much as one is on their own when their parents are helping pay for school and helping pay for me to live while there). For maybe the first time, I felt like someone other than a daughter and a sister and a niece. After changing majors three times, it was the first time I realized all I really want to do is read and write good stuff. The first time I considered myself to be a feminist. The first time I really had to study and work hard in order to meet my own standards. I don't know at what moment but at some point in those four years, I knew I was going to eventually move away from New York.

A lot of people put a lot of stock into a college degree but I've got to say that I couldn't care less that I walked away with a piece of paper telling me I have a B.A. in English. I walked away from college having learned just what possibility means. And I walked away having started to truly grow up and into the person I hope to be. The one I'd like to be. The one I will be, really.



After having taken the last of my photos this past weekend, I laid back on the grass next to the "E" on the beautiful central New York afternoon it was and thought about my time there. And my time since then. And the time I haven't yet experienced. I wasn't then but as I write this (and having just mentioned it and its everlasting relevance in conversation), I'm reminded of one of my favourite Buffy moments.

"...I'm cookie dough. I'm not done baking. I'm not finished becoming whoever the hell it is I'm going to turn out to be. I make it through this and the next thing and the next thing and maybe one day I turn around and realize I'm ready. I'm cookies. And then, you know, if I want someone to eat me...or enjoy warm, delicious cookie-me, then that's fine. That'll be then. When I'm done."