Sifting

[sun_set_bravely]

I'm back in Brooklyn, and I'm restless, searching aimlessly through old LJ entries, avoiding bedtime, wishing it wasn't so dreary outside, wishing my roommate was here. It's been a long, long time, and a whole other apartment, since I was at our shared home without him, waiting for him to return from a trip. It's a weird feeling. I miss him. He'll be back tomorrow night, but at 11:34pm, it seems awfully far away.

I'm scrolling back through old LJ entries of mine, and I don't even remember writing some of them. I love doing this. I think I'm looking for patterns, for systems that were emerging even when I didn't realize it. I'm all about constructing meaning right now.

~ ~ ~

When I walked into the apartment this afternoon after being away for nine days, I didn't recognize the smell. We haven't been here long enough to imprint it completely with our scent and aura, so I got a flashback to college, when I'd come back from a holiday before my roommates and have to sleep in an empty room for several nights. I took off my sweater and caught a whiff of my mom's detergent, which made my heart ache with missing.

As I put down my bags, the unfamiliar scents of the apartment brought back the memory of sitting in my dorm room for the entire Spring Break of my freshman year. My then-boyfriend had come to NYC for his spring break, the week before mine, and he left at the same time that all of my roommates and suitemates left, so I was alone suddenly. I stayed in my room most of the time, with the overhead lights turned off and my desk and floor lamps turned on. I surfed the internet endlessly and watched a three-day PBS documentary about the Irish potato famine. If it wasn't actually three days long, it felt like it, or they ran it over and over. I brought food from the dining hall back to my room and ate my solitary meals on a box covered with a plastic checkered tablecloth, to simulate a normal dining experience. I researched study abroad programs that week, and dreamed about spending my junior year abroad. I ran across a listing for Lancaster University, and wrote down the contact's information so I could find out more. I made microwave popcorn, ate a whole bag in a sitting, and didn't floss when I was finished. I cried to my long distance boyfriend on the phone at bedtime, but we couldn't talk much, because our parents were still paying the phone bills. It might have been raining that week; I don't remember. I slept lightly, and avoided bedtime with whatever techniques I could. I found snopes.com and read every archived article on the site.

~ ~ ~

I've been thinking about the patterns of my life, my self-understanding, and my growth into adulthood and womanhood. Of course I have. I've been at home!

On the plane home this trip, "Adia" came on my iPod, and I was whooshed back into memories of my sophomore year of college. This reminiscent mode has lingered, magnified by my spectatorship of my step-sister's high school graduation. I listened to the valedictorian's and salutatorian's speeches at her ceremony, and I wished desperately that the two young women would say something that they really meant, something from their hearts, instead of what they thought the audience wanted to hear. I tried to remember what I was thinking when I graduated from high school. I wish I'd kept better notes. My memory is good, but things become real to me when I write them down.

While at home, I sifted through old journals, and I found my college application essays. I was surprised at how weak most of them were; they were mish-mashed opinions and quotes from other people. They were so much like the speeches of those honored students; I was trying to say what others wanted to hear. I can barely detect my voice in them. In hindsight, I can see why many of those schools did not accept me for their creative programs. As far as they could tell, I wasn't thinking for myself. Then I re-read my essay for NYU, where I told a story about myself as a kid. I could hear my voice amongst all the outside voices; I could see where that young woman could go someday.

I love tracing my relationship with writing. On one college application, I actually said, "Every once in a while, I just have to write something." I smiled when I read that, noting how thoroughly I tried to exile the writer inside of me before I finally let her exist. I love reading through the different forms of personal note-taking I made before I kept a daily journal to remember things with. I love seeing the twists and turns that I did to avoid what I really loved all along, what every English teacher I've ever had told me I should be doing.

I found an old, old floppy disk with my younger writings on it. For over a year in elementary school, I wrote a book (akin to the Baby-Sitters Club genre) about a young girl and her beloved grandmother. I never finished the book, but I loved sitting down at the computer and working on it. When I saw the list of files on the disk, I remembered with a laugh that I'd titled the file "Bestsel", short for Bestseller. This is the confident young writer I've been searching for. This is the one I tried to silence, but then quickly thought better of it.

~ ~ ~

So now, it's time. I'm finally leaving my detox mode. I feel the words stirring inside and whirring outside around my head. I have ideas for books, short stories, screenplays, poems. Tomorrow, I put my pen to the page again for my timed writings. It is time to take the next step into honoring the 11-year-old bestselling author. It's time to discover a way of writing-working that suits me best.

~ ~ ~

I really should go to bed now. I get to go to Tuesday breakfast with my friend tomorrow morning, and I don't want to be in a daze, because we have lots to catch up on.

Good night, all.

Comments

[puaena.livejournal.com]

I pulled up writingwoman's "friends" entry list and found this entry and I had to comment on it.

As I read it, I got a flashback. Although I didn't go to college away from home, I did dorm at my high school and I remember that feeling of having stay in alone when everyone was else was gone and I was missing my family. I also remember having those dreams of writing get crowded out by what I thought other people wanted (something I still suffer from, btw).

It is good to know that I am not the only one who is going through a detox period and sifting through my thoughts to find my own voice. I don't feel so nutty anymore.

[sun-set-bravely.livejournal.com]

You are not alone! There are hundreds of thousands of us out here, if not more, trying to find our voices over the clamor of our world's noise. You're not nutty at all.

[daisydumont.livejournal.com]

i think maybe i do that too, reading old journals (paper or lj) for patterns. it really does help me to see how i've changed and how i've stayed the same, and it shows (if i'm paying attention) where the deepest threads of myself lie.