Surfacing
(Originally written June 6, 2013)
All because of you,
I haven't slept in so long
And when I do I dream
of drowning in the ocean
Longing for the shore,
where I can lay my head down
-“The Good Left Undone”
Rise Against. That's all I have stuck in my head for a day and a half at the end of my ALHC trip. No great revelations, no clever status, no joyous regaling of tales. Just...Rise Against. Then I started thinking about my life, my choices, and the results thereof. The more I thought, the more I decided that the lyrics might be more accurate than I wanted to admit, both specifically and generally.
"It's for you! Your life is calling - it misses you!" My teammate was goofing off before a competition, using a chip clip like a phone and holding it out to me. His phrasing caught me off guard and I laughed really hard. "Tell it I'm busy dancing and will get back to it later" was my flip response. As the weekend wore on, I started wondering how true his observation had been.
ALHC was our last performance with my team "travel buddy". She's leaving us to focus on her academic and professional development. On the subway between the event venue and the airport, she was talking about how she felt that she had sacrificed other important things for DSP this semester and felt she needed to re-focus her life elsewhere.
As I listened, I counted back through my life for the last few months and started noticing small subtle changes, little endings of many things, as we had worked hard towards the competition. I had let some friendships go, attempting to substitute teammates as new friends in lieu of maintaining my established friendships, an effort that met with fair to middling success. My other hobbies went on hold for the time being...I haven't sent lead downrange, gone hiking, or even done much cooking in the last few months. I like to write and making words on a keyboard often helps lend order to my usually-scattered thought patterns, but even my writing took a back seat. During my downtime after the trip, I was looking through my notetaking software when I came across a half-finished blog entry I'd written "a couple days before". I was surprised when I noted the date originated - May 1! It had been a full month since I had put thought to words and I had since totally abandoned the thought train. I even suspended my climbing gym membership because I couldn't afford the physical exertion and late nights to both climb and dance.
Over three or four weeks, I started noticing more and more behaviors not in keeping with my known character. The little things, the choices I wouldn't normally make. Places and situations where I just seemed “off my game”. It's not how Kenton should be acting.
Somehow, not had just my hobbies and friendships had gone underwater, not just my hopes and goals had been o'ertaken by this tide, but somehow even my very personality became submerged. All without my knowledge or my consent. I seemed under the surface and confused as to which way was up. All I knew was that I'd become focused on one weekend, with one minor side goal. To dance in Chicago, to win, to succeed, such became my drive, nearly my only life's goal. And such almost became the drive that consumed me.
Now I sleep, though. Now life is better.
(Updated 13-Oct)
That's where the story ended in my head in June. Lost, underwater, and tumbling. It took me a while longer to figure out which way was up, how to get there, and where to go after that.
It took me two more months to quit the dance team. You know, the dance team that I loved, that challenged me to push my skills and focus and stuff. The dance team that led me to travel to various illustrious Midwestern destinations to show off and compete, only to have our (my) hopes crushed every time. That dance team that inspired me to hone my social skills on so many occasions and where I really found a lot of my self-confidence.
That dance team – the one was slowly and unceasingly driving me crazy. I didn't realize how deep or how far the crazy in my life had become until I left. Perspective is a wonderful thing often only given by time and as that time passes, I started to feel like me again. I got my head above water and found just how much I'd missed for the last couple months. “Last visited” dates on my blog, a backlog of half-written stream-of-consciousness entries that had seemed so important at the time, and how little I'd been enjoying my life – all of these things sat around my life like half-unpacked boxes in a beautiful apartment.
“Not a day goes by when I don't feel this burn
There's a point we pass
From which we can't return
I felt the cold rain of the coming storm”
(still Rise Against)
Would there have been a point from where I didn't return? Would have the intricate amazing parts of my life been left forever hidden away, life having rushed by them? I don't know, but I'm glad I didn't pass such a point. I'm back now, and it's good.
It's time to blow the dust off things and set them back on the mantel where they can show.
What does that mean for me and for you? (assuming there is a “you” - a writer writes for him/herself, but also for an audience) Well, first of all, it means that I'm going to go back through all those entries that were never published. I'll clean them up a bit and make sure they are coherent, then post them to share. They may be a little rough, as I don't feel like totally re-writing them or necessarily changing the tone wherein they were written. After that, I'm looking forward to unpacking all that I've observed and learn in the last many months. The writing helps me organize my thoughts and work them out, and I'm excited to go back to making coherent patterns out of the scattered bits of life here and there.
Here's to continuing a journey long abandoned.
All because of you,
I haven't slept in so long
And when I do I dream
of drowning in the ocean
Longing for the shore,
where I can lay my head down
-“The Good Left Undone”
Rise Against. That's all I have stuck in my head for a day and a half at the end of my ALHC trip. No great revelations, no clever status, no joyous regaling of tales. Just...Rise Against. Then I started thinking about my life, my choices, and the results thereof. The more I thought, the more I decided that the lyrics might be more accurate than I wanted to admit, both specifically and generally.
"It's for you! Your life is calling - it misses you!" My teammate was goofing off before a competition, using a chip clip like a phone and holding it out to me. His phrasing caught me off guard and I laughed really hard. "Tell it I'm busy dancing and will get back to it later" was my flip response. As the weekend wore on, I started wondering how true his observation had been.
ALHC was our last performance with my team "travel buddy". She's leaving us to focus on her academic and professional development. On the subway between the event venue and the airport, she was talking about how she felt that she had sacrificed other important things for DSP this semester and felt she needed to re-focus her life elsewhere.
As I listened, I counted back through my life for the last few months and started noticing small subtle changes, little endings of many things, as we had worked hard towards the competition. I had let some friendships go, attempting to substitute teammates as new friends in lieu of maintaining my established friendships, an effort that met with fair to middling success. My other hobbies went on hold for the time being...I haven't sent lead downrange, gone hiking, or even done much cooking in the last few months. I like to write and making words on a keyboard often helps lend order to my usually-scattered thought patterns, but even my writing took a back seat. During my downtime after the trip, I was looking through my notetaking software when I came across a half-finished blog entry I'd written "a couple days before". I was surprised when I noted the date originated - May 1! It had been a full month since I had put thought to words and I had since totally abandoned the thought train. I even suspended my climbing gym membership because I couldn't afford the physical exertion and late nights to both climb and dance.
Over three or four weeks, I started noticing more and more behaviors not in keeping with my known character. The little things, the choices I wouldn't normally make. Places and situations where I just seemed “off my game”. It's not how Kenton should be acting.
Somehow, not had just my hobbies and friendships had gone underwater, not just my hopes and goals had been o'ertaken by this tide, but somehow even my very personality became submerged. All without my knowledge or my consent. I seemed under the surface and confused as to which way was up. All I knew was that I'd become focused on one weekend, with one minor side goal. To dance in Chicago, to win, to succeed, such became my drive, nearly my only life's goal. And such almost became the drive that consumed me.
Now I sleep, though. Now life is better.
(Updated 13-Oct)
That's where the story ended in my head in June. Lost, underwater, and tumbling. It took me a while longer to figure out which way was up, how to get there, and where to go after that.
It took me two more months to quit the dance team. You know, the dance team that I loved, that challenged me to push my skills and focus and stuff. The dance team that led me to travel to various illustrious Midwestern destinations to show off and compete, only to have our (my) hopes crushed every time. That dance team that inspired me to hone my social skills on so many occasions and where I really found a lot of my self-confidence.
That dance team – the one was slowly and unceasingly driving me crazy. I didn't realize how deep or how far the crazy in my life had become until I left. Perspective is a wonderful thing often only given by time and as that time passes, I started to feel like me again. I got my head above water and found just how much I'd missed for the last couple months. “Last visited” dates on my blog, a backlog of half-written stream-of-consciousness entries that had seemed so important at the time, and how little I'd been enjoying my life – all of these things sat around my life like half-unpacked boxes in a beautiful apartment.
“Not a day goes by when I don't feel this burn
There's a point we pass
From which we can't return
I felt the cold rain of the coming storm”
(still Rise Against)
Would there have been a point from where I didn't return? Would have the intricate amazing parts of my life been left forever hidden away, life having rushed by them? I don't know, but I'm glad I didn't pass such a point. I'm back now, and it's good.
It's time to blow the dust off things and set them back on the mantel where they can show.
What does that mean for me and for you? (assuming there is a “you” - a writer writes for him/herself, but also for an audience) Well, first of all, it means that I'm going to go back through all those entries that were never published. I'll clean them up a bit and make sure they are coherent, then post them to share. They may be a little rough, as I don't feel like totally re-writing them or necessarily changing the tone wherein they were written. After that, I'm looking forward to unpacking all that I've observed and learn in the last many months. The writing helps me organize my thoughts and work them out, and I'm excited to go back to making coherent patterns out of the scattered bits of life here and there.
Here's to continuing a journey long abandoned.
posted by The student of life at 10:05 PM
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