Significant Oceans

Everyone's life can be described as an ocean and a ship. It has it's smooth days, where the wind is in your sails and the sky is bright or perhaps a little cloudy if you like that sort of thing. It has it's stormy days, where it feels like you have to hold onto life with every ounce of strength that you have, when the masts have broken and your vessel's going under. You have your in between days, where it feels like you aren't going anywhere, the winds have died; when it feels like you're about to boil, the sun's so hot upon your decks that it feels like hell; when the storms are lighter but just as devastating in the long run, like perhaps a break-up or divorce. To some, that could be the large storm, but in retrospect of some events, they're lessened. So it could just feel like coming to harbor in a safe port.

I've come to view life at college as my big storm. I know in years to come, when the storms become larger and memories of them replace these memories, I'll laugh at how bad I thought things were now, but things are still pretty bad. Not in the sense that I'm hurt, minus some minor cuts and bruises, not in the sense that I'm being threatened, and not in the sense that I'm unable to cope with things day to day. No, this is my storm because my grandmother has cancer for the third time, having to give up the home that was built for her and her ex-husband back when my mom and aunt were kids and live with my parents in their house. This is my storm because my other grandmother is ill and the doctors have yet to pinpoint what exactly is making her so sick, what exactly is making her lose so much weight. This is my storm because I feel like I'm losing a sense of self in this place. Not because there are so many people here, but there are. No, because I've changed from this summer. Yes, it was bound to happen and no, I shouldn't be so surprised, but when I talk to my boyfriend and I don't tell him about nearly falling down the stairs, or guys who think my guy friends are dating me or even something day to day - that's not good.

Being away is enough of a strain, so I sought to distance myself from him instead of provoking more pain on either end. So when I'm told about things that happened at work, things that happened at church or with the family, or even just trips he's had to take, I don't go 'Oh, I wish i had been there. I should have been there,' although sometimes I do like in the case of this past weekend. I simply take it, remember it, but don't attach any emotion to it. I've started bottling things up instead of getting them out in the open. If I discuss something about family problems, I don't always immediately tell him about it and I realize this is hurting us both in the long run if I continue on this path. I'm just not sure how else to cope with this. I mean, it isn't as if I'm across seas, I'm just here in Tennessee, five and a half or so hours away from him, that's all. I should be a bit more mature, a bit more independent than what I'm displaying but it just seems... wrong. So very wrong to be away from my family but especially him.

In my Introduction to Sociology class today, there was something that was on the powerpoint that made me hastily scribble it down in my lack-of-sleep stupor. "Significant others is used to refer to those individuals who are most important in the development of the self." ~George Herbert Mead

I shouldn't allow distance and the frustration and grief of not being able to be beside him cloud my judgement and make me a stranger to someone who has better me and my life and with any luck, will continue to help me improve for the rest of our lives. I only hope that I've helped him in the 'development of the self' also.