nalgene and loss.

dad's old nalgene from our great hike today.

the transition phase we call puberty that tweens and teens go through is understood, even expected, and sympathized by society at large. the changes young adolescents experience are not just physical--and the world stands by as a caterpillar turns into a butterfly, never expecting a 13-year-old to be polished or poised, confident or caring.

of course i experienced all these changes at the appropriate age and compliment my audiences on their patience and perseverance in seeing my potential. recently, however, i feel i am undergoing a similar transition of not a physical nature but personally and socially. i feel the same kind of added awareness of my own actions i felt when i was 13, but for completely different reasons. and people keep telling me, "you seem different." or "you've changed." well, what should a person say to that? why, yes. i have changed since i was 17 and have attended three years of college. and the spectators of my life don't wait patiently for me to fully acclimate because my awkward pause of transition is only taking place inside.

looking back on my years of consciousness, i feel my present mind is a bit stifled, and perhaps swallowed. the archives of this cyber journal are the perfect display of my loss of thoughtfulness, reflection, and writing habits over time.

case in point:

i wrote this at the beginning of july and never finished.

i can hardly believe it's july. i feel comfortable with the idea, although it seems impossible that i've lived in washington, d.c. for over 2 months. as far as cities go, i love it here. i think in my mind i have this idea that i've lived in cities all over the country

and i wrote this at the beginning of august. and never finished.
goodbye d.c., hello august. i feel a loss of openness in my life over the past three years. when i started this blog, almost three years ago exactly, i felt i had nothing to hide and nothing to prove. when i began experiencing things--moving away from home, going to college, making new friends, parting with old ones--floods of words would come to my mind and expressing myself via keyboard felt easy, gratifying. those moments of true expression when i had put into words my abstract emotions and impressions

ending my third year of college didn't even phase me. not one heartfelt goodbye, not a single blog entry about the passing of time or the way my life is always changing, like a baby gap.

i remember my journalism professor told me once that we generally want to do what people tell us we're good at. i think for me, this was definitely the case. when people ask me why i went into journalism, i tell them i went into it because i wanted to write. that was it for me--whatever it was, travel writing, blogging, the atlantic, whatever--that was it.

i don't really know what my point is. but i know that my brain isn't empty. it just doesn't think the way it used to--in constant blogging narrative. i wish it did.