A Passenger's Perspective

Recently, I was fortunate enough to witness something amazing. I was seated quietly behind a young man as his classmates ate lunch and watched a movie. Being that this child would be adequately described with an autistic label, he had little shared interest in the film. He had just finished his own lunch, and began to occupy his time by perusing the leftover debris. He was particularly fascinated with his empty water bottle.

I watched quietly as he turned it over several times in his hands. He tilted his head back, and with a dazed expression lifted the empty bottle into the sky. With a whispering "woosh!" he brought the bottle down; placing it on the desk to his right. Wrapping his hand around the base, his throat let out a rumble. He tilted the bottle back and forth as his body rocked side to side. Shifting from 2nd to 3rd gear, the kid began to rev and roar his vocal chords. He rocked wildly in his desk; back, forth, and side to side. Quickly gaining speed, he violently jerked the bottle into 4th gear. When he reached 5th gear, his body settled in as he drove onto a gentler, more forgiving, surface. Then, out of nowhere, his engine let out a loud growl. The boy jumped to his feet, took a couple high pitched screeching laps around the room, and wound up at the classroom door.

"Where are you going?" an aide called out.
He downshifted, throttled his engine, and responded in a frightened tone, "I don't know!" With that, he opened the door, and sped out of the room.

Not really understanding why, this event stood out to me as especially significant. Later, as I drove my own car out of town, I remembered the confused look on his face when the imaginary vehicle took over his body and drove him from the room.

That weekend, I visited my pregnant best friend who lives in the town where we went to college. While I listened to her explain the nuances of her suddenly very grownup life, images of a similar child rocking violently in a desk kept coming back to me. While getting lunch just off campus, I watched co-eds wander by, and in my mind I saw the kid get out of the desk. When it was time to go, I took my usual tour down memory lane. Leaving town, I passed my ex boyfriend's old apartment, followed by the fraternity I frequently took refuge in. I drove a familiar path down a street I regularly traveled just 4 years ago. Each intersection brought a new memory, and with it, the child in my mind peeled around her own classroom once more.

I thought about my best friend, and her husband. I recalled their lives before they met, and the beginning stages of their relationship. I reflected over where we all thought their lives were going, and where they've since wound up. I remembered my own college romance, and the many roads I planned for my life to take. After the last light in town turned green and I shifted into first gear, I heard a familiar voice call out to the girl at the door in my mind, "where are you going?"

And just before merging onto the highway I thought to myself, "I don't know."

Checking My Own ID

I am finding that my life is comprised of a series of surreal experiences in which I seem to have tricked people into thinking I'm an adult.

Last week, I attended my first day of class for my masters program (weird right?). I was driving to school thinking to myself, "this has got to be a mistake.  Someone has made a serious error here. No way do I qualify to be doing this." Part of me wanted to turn right around, and hide in my apartment until someone realized that my application was all an elaborate lie. This spurred the reemergence of a similar reaction: I have my own apartment?! How is that possible?

Something is not right here.  At some point, in the last few years, I became an adult. Or that's what I'm told anyway. I'm not entirely convinced.

Inside, I feel like a 14 year old girl stuck between childhood and maturity. Maybe I haven't been given the appropriate time to sit back and reflect on my experiences, but it seems almost accidental that I've gotten to where I am. Hell, I'm just coming to grips with the fact that I can drive! I feel like I'm breaking some kind of rule whenever I order a drink, and I can't even fathom that I have a college degree.  When did that happen?

History would show that I fully qualify to be where I am in life, but my psyche disagrees. What is that about? Is this a lack of confidence? An over reliance on my parents? Or simply a manifestation of my anxiety?

Whatever it is, it's confusing. I can't be old enough for this! It seems absurd to think that I can live my life on my own. This is my first time doing this, and most of the time I'm lost. I yearn for the guidance given to the youth. Where's the template for how to live my life?  Who is going to spell out my expectations, or provide me with an outline for daily living? I need a hand to hold, and a safety net to fall back on.

Empathic Me

Location: Home
Mood: Reflective

For much of my life I have described myself as "an emotional sponge." When you put me in a room with other people, I absorb the atmosphere. Their feelings become my feelings.

There was a time when this was detrimental to my own mental well being. Imagine being 16 years old and highly susceptible to the mood fluctuations of your incredibly hormonal dance team. Then go off to college, and join a sorority.

I felt all kinds of things, and had no idea what or why for. Add to that my own internally developed feelings. It's really no wonder I experienced the physiological traumas that I did. How does someone so unaware of who she is cope with the constant inundation of inexplicable stressors?

As I grow, and become more self aware, I am noticing this ability, and pulling from it. However, it's a slippery slope. I find that often, I notice a change in the air during an important exchange, or my heart begins to race when I'm discussing issues at a meeting. While (mentally) I feel fine about the topic of conversation, I still can't shake my level of discomfort or unease. Often, I walk away conflicted; thinking to myself "well, that sounded really helpful. I liked those ideas, and this could work," but I can't shake the overwhelming sense of doom and desire to stay home hiding under my covers.

What I've noticed, is that my reaction is a direct result of an emotional observation that I have yet to label:

• You're confused, and I don't know why. That makes me uncomfortable. 
• I haven't noticed the monster in the closet, but he's scared so my heart is racing. 
• On the surface she seems fine. But there's bottled rage, and I know something's not right.

It seems like it could be an incredibly useful skill, if I could just build up my vocabulary. However, right now, it's awfully confusing to absorb everyone's emotions. Since there are no words for me to describe it, I wind up wringing myself-out and going to bed early. This leaves my brain surrounded by a murky solution of sentiments.

Mindy the Maladroit

Mood: embarrassed

I looked up a new word. I feel that this one describes me perfectly right now. I’m sort of a bumbling fool at points in my life.

My interview was not the greatest. It wasn’t awful. It definitely could have been worse. But, it was not the best interview that anyone ever had.

They tell you to arrive twenty minutes early so that you can fill out a criminal history form, view the position description, and review the questions. At interviews for Social Services with the DHS they give you the questions ahead of time. You are then given some time to read through them and prepare your answers for the actual interview. It’s rather nice actually. You get to prepare, and you are ready for what they throw at you.

Well, I am chronically early to important things. It’s almost embarrassing how early I am to things like interviews. Normally, I would have shown up about twenty minutes early, but because they told me to be twenty minutes early I showed up about a half hour early.

What’s weird is that they called me in almost right away. I had MAYBE fifteen minutes to prepare. It was actually more like ten minutes. The criminal history form was filled out, but I never got to review the questions. The job description was like 5 pages long. It doesn’t help that I am a slow reader. The interview questions were at the very bottom of the stack, and I never got around to reading them. I was actually on page three of the job description when they called me in.

It was a panel interview, so it was me versus two DHS staff. The room was set up rather awkwardly. It was a round-ish table, and the two women interviewing me were sitting opposite one another. They asked me to have a seat, so I chose the seat between them. It was more like an octagon table, but it was still rather strangely set up.

The two women introduced themselves to me, and then asked me if I would like to just begin answering the questions. This was nerve racking because I hadn’t even seen them yet. But, I took a deep breath and told them that I hadn’t had a chance to review them, and asked if we could go through them together.  They seemed fine with that. So, they began asking the questions, taking turns. I did my best to answer each question honestly and thoroughly.

About five minutes into the interview I realized that we were almost on the last question...What’s that all about? Honestly, the brevity of the interview began to make me nervous. In my experience good interviews last longer than 10 minutes. Usually, if it’s going well it will last about 30 minutes.

It was at this point, nearly half way through the interview that I began to realize that neither woman was really reacting to anything that I had to say. They both fervently took notes, but it seemed as though neither one of them was actually hearing me.

So, about 10 minutes into the interview they asked me if I had any questions for them. I had a few, but I stretched them out to make the interview last longer. When I had asked all of my questions, the interview ended.

As I got up and started to leave the room the woman (who would be my supervisor) said, “So, Go Beavers. I went there too.” Then she indicated my pin and said, “And you were a Chi Omega? I was a tri-delt, all four years.” To which I responded...“Well, that’s okay,” and left the room.

"Well, that’s okay"? REALLY?! I crack myself up, because sometimes shit just comes out of my mouth. It’s almost like I have verbal diarrhea. I just say things, and I have no control over it.

I know that what I meant was something like, “well, we can still be friends.” However, it definitely came out sounded like, “I won’t hold it against you that you were not cool enough to be a Chi Omega like me.” And that’s how I ended the interview.

All in all, it wasn’t a bad interview, but it did not go the way that I had wanted it to. My plan was to walk out of that interview feeling great. Instead, I walked out of that interview feeling like a goob.

I think that they should make a sitcom about me. At times it feels like I am a cross between Elaine Bennis (from Seinfield) and Pheobe Buffet (from friends). I’m relatively successful in life, but sometimes I just do some things that seem ridiculous.

Let’s just hope that what I said left an impression. Hopefully, it made me memorable, but not in a bad way.
Oh gosh. What am I going to do with myself.

Just Thinking

Location: Home
Mood: contemplative

I drove down to Corvallis for the day.

I was in a sorority. Well, I am in a sorority. I guess once you’re in one you’re in it for life. Anyway, in a sorority you get a whole “family” complete with a big sister and a little sister, sometimes more if you’re lucky enough. Normally, you get your Big sister shortly after joining. This is during your freshman (in the house) year. Then, if all goes accordingly you get your Little sister your sophomore year. Nothing about how I joined my sorority was normal. I joined my sophomore year. So in terms of the sorority, I was a freshman, but I was a sophomore...it’s all very confusing. I got a Big my first year in the house, but she (unfortunately) had to dis-affiliate...that means she left the sorority. However, before that happened, I got a Little during my second year in the house. It was late winter term when they both DA’d...not planned, and independently of one another.

So my third year in the house (my junior year in the sorority, but my senior year in school) I was “adopted” by another Big. She is amazing, and I was welcomed into a big family, because she already had 2 Littles. So I was a triplet. Then I got another Little. She’s fabulous, and I could not be happier with my sorority family. Especially my Little.

Anyway, I told you all of that so that I could tell you this. Today is my Little’s birthday. She’s a sophomore now. In both the house and in school. She joined the house the conventional way, so all of her years add up and are easy to follow. She just moved into the house for the first time a few weeks ago, and I want her to have the best time possible. I feel really bad because I can’t be there. Normally, you would live with your Big the first term you live in the house, but because I joined abnormally, I graduated before we could live together. So, I am forced to be the best Big that I can be...from afar. I don’t want her to feel like she’s missed out on having a Big. So, I wanted to do something special for her birthday.

I had these big plans to surprise her. I wasn’t going to tell her that I was coming into town, and surprise her. However, I found out that she has class until 5pm, and that didn’t really fit into my plans. So, I told her I was coming into town. It would have been cool to do it the original way, but it just wasn’t practical with such a small window.

I have a job interview in Gresham at 10am, so I had to turn around and drive right back after I took her to dinner. So, it really was just a day trip.

There’s something about driving all alone, at night. It really makes you think. I got really deep into my thoughts. It might just be the endless stretch of road. It could also be the fact that you’re passing by towns that seem to be so peaceful, but you feel all alone there in your car.

Sometimes I really feel alone. Being in my car tonight just reaffirmed that. It’s hard to go from undergrad and living with 50 girls, to solo in your car. I was literally driving between two worlds. My undergraduate sorority life which I still feel a part of, and my grown-up, jobless, alone, without a friend world. That’s a tough thing to do, driving down that dark headlight strewn road just made me wonder how I am going to make this transition.

It’s not like I haven’t been trying to make this transition. It would really be nice if once you graduated they just handed you a list of jobs, and said “here you go pick one.” Then once you picked it they gave you that job. I’m not asking for some career Eden right out of school, but something to get my feet wet would be nice. I sort of feel like OSU gave me all of this education, but didn’t provide any help for me to figure out what to do with it.

Now I think I know what I want to do, but that doesn’t help me figure out how to do it. Also, it feels like Gresham is so far from everything and everyone that I’ve grown to know and love in the past few years. It’s hard not to notice that I have no friends. I feel fine most of the time, but it would just be so nice to have someone I could call up and talk to. I would just like a friend that I felt was genuinely concerned with what I was thinking about, and wanted to hear from me. I know that there are girls that I can talk to, and they are genuinely concerned with me. The problem is that they all have their own things going on, and I feel like they forget about me.

That’s hard to take. Every now and then I go through a whole day without actually speaking to anyone, except for my parents. That just reminds me that I don’t have really close friends. I have friends that I can call, but there is no one person that I feel like I can lean on right now. Thank god I’m doing alright, but sometimes it would be nice to know that person was there.