rerouting

It’s an oddly isolating last semester of college. For something meant to be a fifteen week celebration of sorts, I find myself alone more than I’d like. And this isn’t just hyper social freshman karina whining about how she hates being by herself as I have since learned to love alone time, but y’all, it’s weird. 

Whenever people ask me how my semester is going and if it’s the best thing ever, all I can is that I feel like I’m in limbo. There’s no one in my life that’s at the same phase of life as I am currently, and I can really feel it. So I don’t mean I feel alone in the sense that I wish I had more friends or more support or even more events because I’m wholly fulfilled in those realms- I’m very aware that I put myself in this position that’s just a little out of step. Doesn’t help that the vast majority of my friends have graduated and I feel behind even if I’m not.

My theory is that I subconsciously do this to myself. It’s always easier to say that my situation is just odd and hard to connect to rather than actually sharing. Any stressors are mine to share or bear, but either way I can tell myself that my obsessive independence is intact. So I guess my issue is that I like to self-isolate LMAO.  

I miss the easy, three times a week friendship gathering that stacks offered, but things change and that wasn’t for me this semester. I feel like once I land a job I’ll find the ease in free time I’m currently missing, but that’s also just a form of mental escapism. I struggle with feeling satisfied with my accomplishments and position even while I feel real joy. I truly do enjoy all the time I have this semester and the chance it gives me to finally focus in on career and academic pieces, but I still can never shut up the thousand other voices in my head. It’s like my carefully manicured world from the past 20 years is forced to contend with the breadth of real reality, and man is there friction. 

(1/13/19)

Why do we get mad at each other? How do people make us sad? Sure, people can and will wrong us but what does that look like? Who am I to expect you to act accordingly to how I think you should?

There’s nothing glorious about overworking yourself to the point of burnout. I know this rings out with echoes of hypocrisy because I am of course guilty of having past declared the impossibility of being too busy as long as it’s offset by joy but alas I played myself. Being truly too busy destroys your joy, and there crumbles this faulty equation.

__The more I think about 2018 the less I want to dive in. People post when they’re happy, when they have something to share and show off, so naturally I’ve been inundated w square after square of “the happiest year of my life!” and “2018 was so sweet!” We’re taught that every year should be better than the last because that’s progress. Life is a charge against entropy and if you’re the sad ones that get caught in the current- you’re losing. (1/1/19 )

__It’s almost funny how triumphantly I set off for 2018. Sophomore spring was fresh but so perfectly well-worn and I sank freely into that tempurpedic mattress of campaign affirmations and idealistic friendship dynamics. Not to say I’m finishing the year, or more accurately starting 2019, in a sad place- there’s just less of the surety I felt prior which I’ve always told myself was weakness, but now that I’ve been transported here to this blank post that’s a diagnosis I don’t think I can stand by. All this rambling to say: I’m learning to question myself in the micro as I choose to zoom out and reckon with all dust filled corners to present a me I’m proud of. I’m rerouting.

But that’s not exactly what this is about. This is for Fall 2018 because heck yEaH I’m a student and my life is dictated by the academic calendar!! I’m introspective as fuck but this semester took a distinctly reclusive (comparatively) and ~berkeley~ turn. (1/9/19)

__I have never before moved with such bone-deep tiredness. I have never before cancelled meetings or meetups to stay home and sleep. I have never before relied so solely on chemical energy. I have never before cried quite like that. I have never before shaken with anger quite like that. But this is all internal, in-my-own-head concerns. Though i lived dictated by color-coded rectangles on a phone screen I was never buried below and I count that as a win.

Headspace is conditioned by context and a week ago I wouldn’t have been able to look back this comparably chipper. It wasn’t a good semester and it wasn’t bad- all circumstances withstanding it was possibly the best it could’ve been. I went in cocooned in mantras of “you’re going to die” and “please drop something” but commitments aren’t necessarily always our own choice and i quite plainly refuse to acquiesce to someone else’s estimate of my own capacity. I can drive myself mad but ultimately i know my own limits. I know what’s worth it and what’s not and if my mental calculation has landed me at square wtf then so be it.

There are different energies at play- maybe this is what kept me afloat. The weariness i feel from overstudying is far removed from that which burns the rubber in my soles running to put out fires. I view myself from a distance in variations of lists, linear pathways, and interval meters and in my mind’s eye these energies float steadily at the bottom of my mental screen. A dip in one is offset by a rise in another and though I may put aside sleep my body screams for in favor of a conversation with a friend- ultimately my meters balance. Maybe i’m mental for computerizing my physicality but it’s been survival successful. A late night studying is oddly rejuvenating against the foil of drama and one well timed call fills me to max with magic wrought from hard earned familiarity.

I made an effort to schedule alone time so i could pursue the things that are tied to no other aspect in my life that hold an untainted peace. Goodwill and embroidery satisfied that and more, and to me it’s a precious thing. There’s no long term goal but it feels like an investment in just me and god damn it i’ll be selfish here. Solitude was never something i desired in the past but fall forced a mental switch for sake of sanity and though it felt like i relinquished control to some deep subconscious i’m thankful now.

It really is true that people are the most important determinant of one’s joy. I’m fucking lucky, i know, to have the friends i do both here and in irvine. Home is a funky concept but i breathe deeper in comfort and there’s nothing quite as wonderful as comfortable silence with others. All those prior “have never before”s made fall foggy but peaks above are indeed there and zoomed in are the manifestation of the feeling of being held. Closeness and trust are something i think we all hope for in our relationships with others and to me there’s no greater reassurance than knowing you are held despite whatever wild emotions or crises like to scream your faults.

Though i’ve been actively combating it, sharing often still blares weakness in the hollow of my head. My mind runs tests and scenarios no one needs to know of and sprints both too far in front and behind so really what’s the purpose of opening it a crack for it just to be beat down in the stampede? All abstractions aside one of my goals for the semester was to learn how to share in media res and not purely after it’s perfectly packed, wrapped, and slapped with a bow.

Of course this touches nothing of my on paper responsibilities and asuc, stacks, school ran circles around me, but hey i got through with initial goals semi-achieved and though my cynicism may have grown it’s all conditional in the end.

This isn’t a psychoanalysis of all existing connections but far more me-driven. This is me trying to progress and as much as the people i’ve been blessed with mold that I aim to be satisfied with the steel frame that is within and frankly forever stuck. To sum things up and purely because i have a raging crush on lists, have the following:

I like to theme my semesters and fall was a mission in three parts:

Staying genuine

Sharing struggles in media res

Personal branding

A few things I told myself throughout:

I would allow more time for hobbies whether such time existed or not

I would spend time with the people I care about no matter how inconvenient (hello postgrads ily)

I would fulfill all my responsibilities as presently as possible and hold myself to my own standards

Yeah I like creative outlets but that’s not my future job

I’m one person and as much as I love compartmentalizing it’s time to consider cohesiveness

Major shifts, good or bad:

You don’t love Berkeley any less, but you no longer want to stay forever.

Your tolerance for people that you find annoying is nearing zero.

You love to be alone and to just lie on your rug doing nothing, not even thinking.

You’re addicted to thrifting.

You acquired a newfound love for exclusion yikes.

Art!! A lot!!

You’re still more closed off, but mostly by convenience and no longer by a profound sense of unease. (For example: sharing all this doesn’t scare you shitless! a concept!)

Things to work on in 2019:

Not apologizing for things I’m not actually sorry about just to seem polite

Write more thought essays

Not immediately writing off things I disagree with + productive confrontation / don’t fester

Spend less

Hone in on what you want- career mostly but also choose an art to grow

Church attendance

Doing things because you feel convicted to not just because you think you should

Call mom and dad more 

Good job on:

Staying committed to friendships

Finally getting that tattoo

Not compromising your values w drama

Finding better music

Finally looking externally how you feel internally

Grateful for:

Friends that pour into you and hold you even when you make it hard.

Rough situations that allowed for much needed conversations and adapting

Facetime even with shitty wifi

Newfound breadth of friends and thus learned experience of others

Collab playlists

Surprise epiphanies born from unexpected discussions

Escape

Big love to:

Robin

Grace

Jess

Camille

Katie

Audrey

Karlo

Jeremiah

Angie

There’s no moral or lesson learned- I guess this is just me fighting against myself so really it’s all just perspective in the end.

There’s always so much pressure to come up with the best, most heart-warming, sigh-inducing answer, one that brushes every nuanced sphere that, zoomed out, pixelate your life. That’s why I sit there, staring at the empty mic along with everyone else, buzzing just kind of, like my mildly broken laptop on overdrive. My thoughts are reaching, searching for something anything that can follow whoever just went. Because I want to share. I know I’m hella fucking blessed so why can’t I just move my legs and open my mouth and say it?

I think this year, I’ve learned (or at least begun to learn) to be thankful for alone time.

“Me Time” is a very cute idea, but Me Time: Karina Edition has come to look more like Me Time Plus My Favorite Youtube Channels. In all the busyness and frantic anxiety that has been especially suffocating this semester, I’ve dug myself so deep that I’m insulated from my own reminders of ‘hey Karina you haven’t really just thought in a while.’ I’m scared of what I’ll find, snarling and unprocessed and living in my head, so when I do (procrastinate and) find alone time, I drown out myself with mindless chatter.

I miss summer, when I had Thursday’s to explore and think and write. More than that, I miss the peace that it promised.

This is coming out all very melodramatic and un-revolutionary, and it really shouldn’t be, but I think that’s why it’s the one thing that’s pushed me to write in so long.

Social, extrovert, the more the merrier loving Karina has finally learned to calm the fuck down. This is potentially confusing for my newer friends in college, but for my homegirls (what’s up HBC), this is NEWS okay. Karina now has desires to be alone. To just sit. Albeit not to do nothing because we haven’t stepped that stone yet, but still. To just sit and think and be and write at home and not at a café surrounded by lovely strangers.

!!!

Honestly, I’m not sure if this makes sense, but I’m thankful that after 19 years of thrumming, God’s smacked it into my head that I need to breathe. Implementation is another thing entirely, but the thought’s there! And really isn’t it the thought that counts?

The answer is no, no it’s not, but this is progress, y’all.

You just woke up? You missed breakfast, that’s food you missed out on.

When do you want to eat a pear? I’ll peel one for you. I’ll cut it the way you like and throw in some kiwis too.

I bought four of your favorite mochi creams. They’re each the size of your fist but I bought all that the store had.

For some reason you still don’t eat meat, so I ordered your favorite dishes for when we go to Shushu’s.

I grabbed some more potatoes, the last ones actually. I’ll leave it on my plate because I know you’ll cave later.

I bought ten avocados. They’re in the fridge with the mochi’s and grapes and there’s ice cream bars in the freezer.

Last time I asked, you said you wanted rice crackers and dried apricots, so I went to Sprouts and bought giant bag-fulls. Take them with you to school because you don’t eat enough there.

Here, have some shrimps. Dinner hasn’t officially begun yet but I know you like them.

I bought this fancy almond milk cold brew. We only drink hot coffee, but you like it cold.

You’re going to go study at a café? Okay, I’ll bring you avocado and cheese sandwiches around lunch time.

Try this turkey porridge, there’s only a little meat. I know you won’t eat it, but you used to love it.

There’s potatoes on the stove, your favorite.

I don’t eat sweets, but you seemed to really like these muffins so I’ll put one in my purse for you.

Not even five days, leaving so soon. There was so much more food I wanted you to eat.

Take some to the airport.

I know you already landed, but we just ate cake and I wish I told you to take some with you.

Five days back in the Berkeley and summer already feels like one big, oddly detailed dream. It’s funny how quickly your mind-view can change, regardless of how many well-worded monologues or razor-straight outlines you may map. And by “you,” I obviously mean me.

Perhaps ignoring the existence of classes isn’t the best way for me to reacquaint myself with my academic life, but hey, Hannah Montana said it best: nobody’s perfect. My mentality has already been largely consumed by dance and ASUC, leaving career Karina floundering somewhere in limbo.

Should I fight this? I guess that’s where I find myself next. Every mini crisis I had in DC told me to refocus myself on my future, to remind myself that my GPA should be my sweet, sweet baby, but instruction has yet to begin and I’ve already lost this resolve. I’m tempted to just say fuck it and embrace the current state of affairs, but that would kind of destroy the point of this whole blog.

The next question is, if I am so easily molded by my physical surroundings, am I ever fully just me? I know I overthink things, and in my desperate search for structure I seem to throw myself deeper into a frenzy. Keeping up with the news as steadfastly as I did over summer is already proving to be unlikely, and this was a subconscious effort then- it took a subscription reminder sitting in my inbox to dunk me back into full clarity.

Option A is to stop fighting time and allow myself to just be a student, but that feels like mild ignorance. Option B is to be calm and reasonable and focus on my life as a student but also plan ahead with DC in my future. !!! What a cute idea.

Maybe this isn’t the inspirational finish I was initially hoping I’d stumble upon, but I think I am still well pleased. It’ll take some more adjusting, but it’s probably good for me to detach myself from DC for a bit. I have still gained infinitely more than I expected to, whether that’s regarding work experience, passionate resolution, or personal relationships.

Another common reason for the way I write and my love for processing: I think emotions are inefficient. I recognize how robotic and borderline-crazy that sounds, but trust me when I say I’ve improved past that. Emotions are great, feeling is great, hurt joy fear love despair is all great at an arm’s length, but when I don’t want to deal with the constricting weight of just *feeling*, I write to explain everything I understand logically and force myself to stop dwelling and wallowing. So now, D.C.

I think by now it’s quite obvious how much I enjoyed my time here. In fact, I think I have long since past the point where it’s cute and fully slipped into obnoxious. Wups. So of course it follows that I’d be sad to leave. What I wasn’t anticipating, my dear friends, is exactly how sad I’d be.

Logically, I know I’m being ridiculous. The city isn’t going to just up and leave and I already know I’ll end up back here in, max, 3 years (because this I have decided ok @Future Karina), but what can I say, I’m sentimental. Walking from the metro stop to the apartment, my chest was tight, a physical reaction that I don’t usually experience. The question is: W H Y ? When my body refuses to follow my brain, I get annoyed. I get annoyed because I know there’s a reason that I’m steadfastly trying to ignore that my body refuses to allow me to.

This summer was easily the best combination of high joy, low stress, and max fulfillment I’ve ever experienced. That’s one reason why I don’t want to leave, I guess, but I think it breaks down to something a little more fundamental. I don’t set expectations because I think they only lead to disappointment. Typically, this means I am pleasantly surprised. I’m not used to being blown out of the water.

I figured work would be fun enough; it was insane. I knew I liked the city; it was better. I anticipated the change of environment would get me thinking; it got me sharing. I guessed I’d meet some cool people; both strangers plus my staff were gamechangers.

I’m a talker. I like to talk, but maybe more importantly, I know how to talk.

I can carry a conversation as average as any Joe or Mary Jane; I can unleash the part of my brain that is always rambling to fill a silence; I can coat every little lilt with the most nauseating sugar or refreshing acid.

Never mistake my silence for disengagement; I am systematically categorizing every word you say. I don’t really believe in slips of the tongue. I want you to talk and talk until all pleasantries are shriveled and dry; I want to sift through your sand and find your skeletons.

I love words. They can’t capture everything, but they can come pretty damn close. If I say something, I mean it. If it’s not what you want to hear, suck it up. I’m not here to fluff your ego or be an easy smile, and you can try to talk circles around me, but baby you lost the second you let your eyes flash with empty pride.

I’m young. I’ve been young, and I’ll continue to be young. I’m also competent and sharp, but firstly, I am young.

It doesn’t bother me, because what am I supposed to do about it? I can’t exactly accelerate my aging or slow down yours; my birth is quite clearly in the past and can’t magically be moved.

When people find out my age, the common response is surprise. They react as if it were a secret, as if I have some fabulous excuse for being (insert age here). There’s a stare and a pause, like I’ll fill both gaps in time with a fix-all explanation for behaving and fitting in a few/more years above my own.

I don’t think it’s a big deal, and most of the time neither do others after the initial, but there will always be those that grasp onto it as a qualifier and basis for assumption. “You’re very ______...for your age.” “But then again, you’re only (insert age here).”

I hate being coddled and I hate being babied. I want you to see me as me, and not dig for history or context when it shouldn’t be relevant.

Sure, most people seem impressed that I have somehow managed to be so (insert apparently flattering adj. here) despite only being (insert age here), but for something that used to make me preen, it’s starting to feel more patronizing.

It feels like a congratulations for something I don’t think warrants one. Like, thank you? I guess? I can’t deny that it’s nice that people think I’m older than I am because I guess that means I’m mature, but I also know people who are a lot older than I that behave like children, so I don’t think someone’s age should be that powerful of a decider.

The “Oh” that I tend to receive feels like a temporary filler for a whirlwind of assumptions, and I’m not crazy about the idea that the perception of my character and ability, things that I’ve actively worked on, can be so easily altered by something that is just fact.

I don’t think about my age very often, probably not any more than I think about the color of my hair. What’s happened in my life is just that, and whether it was dealing with more crap than average or being surrounded by people older than me that shaped me, I don’t feel a strong urge to micro-investigate it any more than I already have.

I’m eighteen.

Seven weeks in and my reality has already adjusted.

People always say that internships are never a mistake, because even if you don’t love it, at least you learned that. Very true, but I’m lucky that I loved mine, so much so that my perception of everything around me has begun to distort in favor of this resolution.

On a general level, I know where I want to be employed in the future and have an idea of how to get there. On a concrete level, I know that law school is still a goal, but that I want to take one and maybe more gap year(s) working on the Hill. (Tbt to when this possibility stressed me out hahaha I have accepted my fate.) On a mental level, I know that I need to prioritize my grades if I want any of this to happen.

It’s easy to stand firm in these things while insulated from what I have dubbed ‘my real life’ back in Berkeley. I can think about my future and my career and what I want from life on a socioeconomic versus happiness platform because that’s all that’s really infiltrating into my mind.

I’ll admit, I fear returning to Berkeley and reconsidering all of this. I have myself figured out right now, and I don’t want anything changing that. I don’t want another revolution of thought and I don’t want more indecision, but I know I am susceptible to the throes of life-life that Berkeley has thrown me in.

I’m a pretty classic ENTJ in that I see things very cut and clear and like to categorize the shit out of everything that touches me. I almost forget that this summer was just a summer, and that I have an academic/student life waiting for me back in the Bay. It was just a year, and blurry one at that, so it almost doesn’t feel real sometimes. I forget my initial regret at not staying for the break and my obsessions over my next three years and my mental flowcharts that had settled me with where I was. I’m scared for the return of overly competitive and striving Karina.

Finding my work persona felt like a quest, like the truest test of whether I really knew myself or not. In comparison, my venture into college was nothing, because there, I could hide in my accomplishments. I could take the cheap, easy way out and just be high school me, but more (guess what that’s exactly what I did). Work, however, does not have the same freedom and forgiveness, and who you are is dictated by what you can achieve, starting from scratch. 

That scared me, as I’ve previously said. I entered unsure and shy and fearful of not succeeding like I’d taught myself I must. Joke’s on me, cause everything turned out fine. In hindsight, it isn’t anything too compelling and it certainly isn’t groundbreaking, but it was still a slight process(!) that wasn’t completely organic. 

1. I started small, both in task and stature. If I could do this menial task better and faster than any one else, that could be a win. If I could prove myself capable of handling this and more, that could be a win. And in the meantime, I’d be sweet, unassuming, sharp, but silent. 

2. That quickly got old. And, according to plan, I was allowed to do more cooler stuff. This was the initial ascent, still accompanied by easy obedience and strategic eagerness.

3. I promise I’m not crazy. This sounds masterfully drawn out, but I think I just tripped around and woke up somewhere lucky. More competency and efficiency led to more trust and more tasks. I had proven myself as a good, willing (emphasis on willing) worker, and with that came ease of behavior as well. When in an environment like work, capability should be the priority. This is something I just believe personally, so it only follows that I didn’t feel comfortable behaving as sarcastically and dryly as I typically am until I had cemented that bit down. 

4. The peak! Except it’s not really a peak because hopefully there’s no descent! Competency plus sociability have at long last been reunited, and there was celebration in all the land for such a joyous marriage. Real talk, the office space is now a loved space, and I am me with responsibility.

This could very likely be instinctual for others, but let me tell you I wrestled with this hella, especially on the day to day. I didn’t and don’t think it’s ok to be sassy and snarky and have casual conversation in the work space unless there is no doubt that the work is being done and done well. I knew I didn’t know how to do the work well before, so I didn’t think I deserved to act as casually as I am accustomed to. Being a good intern is easy- just don’t suck ass. Being a coworker is less so, but way more rewarding. 

When I ask "Is it safe?", is physical harm all you consider? Maybe it's my mistake, assuming you'd hold the same understanding as I. Or maybe it's still my mistake, but this time for distorting what is by all means a very basic word.

Is it too much to ask to feel safe as well? Or am I just another statistic, one that sorry babe just doesn’t have the ability to quantify the maybe’s, the feelings, the imaginary.

Is this just the curse of femininity? When every "hey sweetheart" and "oh baby baby" makes my hackles rise just one centimeter more, who can I blame? Is my fear founded in discrimination or their comfort in dominance and if both are true where does that leave security?

Did it surprise you? The frequency in which the sneers came out? The ease with which I didn’t falter once in word or step while you paused?

Should I feel flattered? (lol fuck that.) Maybe if I rack up enough honks from horns, they can fuel my screams.

Can we create a worldwide safety fund? One for the individuals, for the unfairly charged. Who can I mail my check request to, one that pays for every unnecessary Uber ride that suddenly felt like it was?