We had Christmas Eve and Post-Christmas Eve parties at my
house. Having the people and food I love under my roof for two days is a
spectacular blessing, mostly because I don’t even have pick out shoes to go
with my outfit. But also because I’m a lucky member of probably 1% of humans in
this world who gets to have so much food they almost barf and so much love they
want to scream. With my gratefulness for my privilege stated, I will now
commence one of the most cherished human past times, relaying frustrations
about a mostly wonderful situation.
After my holiday parties and other social interactions since
I’ve been home for break, I have at least a zillion and half new rules to
follow. Every friend, stranger, and family member knows what will surely make my
life ten times more awesome than it is now.
A few of my new rules:
Don’t trust anyone you meet at parties.
Make friends at parties.
Make a lot of guy friends—girls are too much work.
Don’t worry about boys, just focus on your grades.
Work hard because college is expensive.
Don’t work too hard because college is the last time to be a
kid.
You have force yourself to go to Frat parties.
Just go to house parties.
Find where you belong.
Go out of your comfort zone.
Clearly following all of these
rules is impossible, which leaves me wondering what rules I should follow. I’ve
decided that many of these rules are pieces of irrelevant advice (brought to
you in part by: Alcoholic Beverages ™ Making
people talk out of their asses since the beginning of time and Humans ™ Imposing their personal beliefs on others
since they could speak). After my past two visits home, I let people’s
voices bounce around in my head and convince me I was doing something wrong. I
thought since all these people have already had the experience I’m going
through, they must really know what they are talking about.
When I returned to school, I began
second guessing a lot of my choices, which I wasn’t used to doing at school. The
only person there who tells me I’m doing something wrong is my roommate. And it’s
usually about indisputable things like when I plug in the heater, TV, and
microwave at the same time its bad because it short-circuits half of the room.
Also the only person at school who tells me I’m doing something right is myself.
For example: when I’m angry, jogging up and down the stairs in my dorm a few
times feels better than punching innocent walls. Wrong and right are very clear
in these instances because nobody’s opinion is making me question my intuition.
What I’ve realized during this
visit home is that other people’s idea of what will be the best thing for me to
do, despite their good intentions, has no relevance to what I should do. One of
my cousins forced herself to go to a Frat party and met her first college
boyfriend there. That’s cool for her, but I’m not really desperate for one of
those at this point in my life because they have cooties and I’m not vaccinated
for that. My aunt made a lot of great guy friends in her dorm that became some
of her closest friends. That’s cool for her, but most of the guys in my dorm
are douche bags. Someone I babysit for had the time of their life in theatre at
school. That’s cool for her, but the thought of being on stage makes me gassy.
One of my sister’s friends made a bunch of new friends at Smoker’s Island, the
picnic table located at the 100-foot distance from all dorms required by law.
That’s cool for her, but I tried smoking for a hot second and its too expensive
and smelly.
My favorite advice has come from my
sister Adele. As far as personal interests and talents go, we couldn’t be more
opposite. Her last recreational reading book was “Kendra: Sliding into Home,”
the riveting tale of an ex-playboy bunny. One of my three current reads are
“America in 1492: The World of the Indian Peoples Before the Arrival of
Christopher Columbus.” She’s spectacular at math and she was DECA state
finalist. Thinking about math and business presentations make me just as gassy
as thinking about being on stage. She gets bored being in the house all day,
but its one of my favorite activities. Her advice wasn’t even advice at all,
which is why it’s the most reliable. During thanksgiving break, she asked me
how many parties I’ve been to. I debated counting the time I went to this kids
dorm with about 4 other people for a couple hours and mooched some of their
definitely not alcoholic liquids before heading back to my room. I decided to
be honest, so I didn’t include that one and told her I really have only been to
three. She just smiled, shook her head and said, “You’re such a nerd.” I
laughed and said, “Yeah, basically.”
You may be thinking, “Well this
doesn’t seem very helpful. Like it’s not even that good of a story. Where are
the insightful, wise words that bond you two for life?” Well sadly, we don’t
live in a sitcom and nobody I know can show up in my moments of doubt and tell
me exactly what I need to hear. But the fact that she accepted my choices as an
extension of who I am, instead of telling me what I should do to become who I
am going to be, is the best indirect advice in the world. These next few
sentences are burdened with the weight of hypocrisy, because I’m going to give
you (my faithful and possibly non-existent audience) a piece of advice. Take a
few minutes to yourself, close your eyes, flush your mind of all the voices and
words of everyone you know, turn off all electronics, keep your hands and feet
inside the ride at all times, and ask yourself how you feel. After your
conversation with yourself is over, if you are satisfied with your answer award
yourself 7,000 points and continue making great choices. If you are not
satisfied with your answer, give yourself a gold star for being honest with
yourself and then go try something else until you are.