Filling in gaps

After the most harrowing experience I've had in a while, far worse than that time I was going to New Orleans and barely made it, almost as bad as that night when I had to write a 20 page paper in 12 hours and then do my hieroglyphs midterm, my friend Sara and I found an apartment in Hell's Kitchen. I never imagined I would live in a place called this, I always figured I'd end up there after I died, the maître pâtissier in a huge kitchen where lava bubbles underfoot and the faucets spew fire, barking orders at my lizard and dragon helpers, making sure the slugs are massaging the dough well enough and the rats are grinding the walnuts fine enough. Instead, here I am right out of college, starting life in Hell's Kitchen in a city I never though I'd ever inhabit.

In a fitting turn of events, I rediscovered my livejournal in the recent past. The one I kept in high school. The one where I started every blessed entry with something self-derogatory or negative. Behold:

05 April 2004 12:33 AM: this entry is very watery.
21 Mar 2004 09:10 PM: Look! Something more boring than reading my livejournal! (I proceed to provide the reader with pictures)
22 Feb 2004 12:02 AM: hello, one (or all). The week was remarkably unremarkable.

11 Jan 2004 09:50AM: I hate sunday mornings.

There is plenty more where that came from, not only restricted to the opening of every entry. In fact, at one point in my chronicling, I seem to realize that all I ever do is complain, decide I should fix that, and then go right back on complaining. It's like watching an accident happen. I cannot imagine how I did not get bored of wallowing in self-pity and low self-confidence. On an up note, though, even though my mother might not agree with me, she really could have done worse with a teenage daughter. If she was ever wondering where I was on a Friday or Saturday night, without fail I could have been found in Barnes and Noble, apparently. Or playing board games with the neighbors.

Oh, or updating livejournal.

I would be embarrassed if I didn't know that all that angst is just a natural part of growing up, evidently. I was tame compared to scores of other soul-searching entries written by kids the same age as I was, and I am happy that I can read at this and laugh now. Sometimes I worried that coming to college didn't change me an awful lot, that I still predominantly recognized the 15 year old me more often than some sort of a young lady who graduated college with a degree having read Adam Smith and Derrida. However, luckily, this is not the case. I no longer think I am the most awkward or unaccomplished person in the world, and no matter how many doubts I may have about what my skills are, I know I can learn what I do not know just as well as anyone else.

I'm sure if I ever come back to this entry in 5 years, I'll laugh. I'll most likely think that at this point in my life I thought I knew something, and that I did not know what was in store for me. That I never saw what was coming next. This is true, I don't know what's coming next at all, but I just want to write to my 28 year old self that at this point in my life, at 1:03 AM, September 1st, 2008, I am happy with something I have accomplished.

She also needs to know that she should do a better job packing next time around.