Growing Pains

Thursday=summer blog day! A life lesson a week keeps the doctor away, or something like that. (11:41pm is still Thursday, step 1 to completing blog once a week on Thursdays goal-complete). 

  

With ending my sophomore year of pre-med/Biochem classes, the hardest year of my undergraduate degree, I think I should feel much more accomplished than I do. Instead of feeling empowered, I feel like a run-down disgrace of a student. I’m sick and taking antibiotics, exhausted, confused, and headed back to work here in Seattle in five hours. I drove my car back from California yesterday. Celicia made it! Her second successful trip between California and Washington was just as smooth as the first. By smooth I do not mean floating in an Escalade smooth, I mean smooth as in no problems like a truly unfortunate member of my family would have had. Celicia is anything but smooth, she bumps with the road and buzzes along like a little race car, but not as cool. I love summer. Celicia must know that because it felt like summer the whole trip, with the heater stuck on. Who doesn’t love a constant stream of warm air right in their face?

Yesterday was my 20^th birthday and I had such an amazing day. Any day that includes accidental Asian jokes in places like nail salons and sushi restaurants, misunderstandings about how similar “I just ripped ass” and “Man that guy ate fast” sound, and quality friend time is a day I feel blessed to be a part of.

On a completely related note to ass and birthdays, I am coming to realize I don’t like to instigate conflict. However once in the midst of conflict, bring it on, I just don’t want to start it. Thank you Momma Annabelle for the very obvious comment of “Uh, Chelsea, who does?” Good point Annabelle, good point. Annabelle 1, Chelsea 0.

When I started writing this post, I was, and still am, in the process of deciding where to spend my summer. When my mom heard I was blogging she said, “Oh gosh is it a rant? Great”. No this is not a rant, its more of a discussion, or a disagreement, with myself. On one hand, I have Seattle with a great but gamble of a job and I have family. However Santa Barbara holds the key to my heart where I have been offered a job and a great (cheap) place to live. My hopes in writing about this, which happens often when I write, is that I will walk away from this knowing more of where my heart truly lies on one side of the decision. In making this decision, I have been consulting a lot of people. I love talking through things and listening to perspectives in decision-making and have done quite the amount of talking and listening. The other thing I would love is input from my readers, if you have a thought on this please don’t hesitate to shoot me an email on the email above!

In Santa Barbara I have a job offer that should make me enough money to live, and save about $3000 for living during the school year. I would also get to be in sunny California near most of my friends, a boyfriend, and a beach. A summer of surf and work would be in future. On the other side of the spectrum I have Seattle, with family, a few friends, a chance to put away more money but only a gamble. The first summer at the restaurant I usually return to I made around $10,000. The second summer I walked away with $5,000. This summer the weather is supposed to be good, meaning more money than last, however the restaurant business is risky and so is the weather in Seattle.

As the days to make a decision about draw to a close and I start the process of accepting my nanny position to lock in moving, my last prayer is that my parents begin to respect the decision I will end up making about this. Unfortunately for me, I am bull headed enough to stand firm on decisions even against my parents. As they said today in our discussion, “That trait alone will get you far in life, but it will also cause you to make a lot of mistakes”. I’m good at making mistakes. It’s a terrible thing to be good at.

It saddens me to think of what I will miss out on over the summer here in Seattle. I will miss my dad’s 40^th birthday (young, right?), time with my siblings, and soccer games. Despite all of that, my heart is in California. If I could pick up my family (figuratively) and take them with me to California my heart would be complete. But as I know I have discussed before, I have two lives, one here in Seattle and one in California. The gap is growing wider and after spending a total of 18 months in California, I don’t know that I could live here for 4 months. I wish the chance of more money and family was enough to keep me for that amount of time. Seattle is where I grew up, not where I currently reside, and not where I feel at home anymore.

One of the biggest ideas swaying me into leaving early is that money is no longer of the highest value in my life. At one point I was working an insane amount, supervising a restaurant at 17 years old, and in search of money to spend; also successfully making money to spend. These are growing pains because my priorities are changing, I’m changing, and I’m doing it from two states away from my family. I also call this time in my life a time of growing pains because it hurts. It is painful to leave where you grew up for good, and painful to hurt your family in the process. It breaks my heart to break my parents’ hearts, but yet another thing I am unfortunately good at.

If I could redo this whole process of living in California for the summer I would have told my family months ago I was thinking about not being in Seattle for the summer. I made the mistake of saying nothing until heading back up to Seattle. I have never regretted going to school two states away, and would not trade the two years I’ve had in California for anything, but I am so jealous of the people that have family within hours of driving. It takes me hundreds of dollars and a plane trip, or two days of a road trip, to get to my family. Because of that, I made a home away from home, which is now winning out over my home.

I am not only learning lessons in honesty but also on bringing up the difficult things in life. I want to keep the peace, as does anyone, but that is a downfall in most situations. Sometimes hard, lose-lose decisions must be made and uncomfortable topics must be talked about, but this is part of a life worth living. 

Procrastination, Surprises, and Waves

Somehow finals week is right around the corner, and here I am writing instead of pretending to do the horrifying homework in front of me. The amount of work I have to do in the next nine days is so daunting I can do nothing other than think about all things apart from school. The ever-feared Organic Chemistry is almost over, terribly unnecessary Physics is almost complete, and I am about halfway done with my undergraduate degree. Life is flashing before my eyes, and contrary to what you would think, I am fully aware of it. Weeks feel like days, and months feel like weeks. How disproportionate, right? 

It seems the more work I have to do, my brain gets exponentially more unorganized. My writing however gets more organized. Just kidding, good luck following my train of thought. 

Usually I procrastinate like a boss and then right at the end I pull it together. I strangely pride myself in sliding by with impressive grades for the situation I got myself into, and swearing I’ll do it different next semester. However after the year of academic hell I’ve been running through, I’m beginning to doubt I have it in me to pull it all together. That takes such a push of effort, and I’m running out of steam, fast. Part of me is so used to having tremendous piles of homework looming over my head that it no longer instills the drive it once did. There is no test, no paper, and no part of an undergraduate degree that could scare me into working hard earlier than I have to. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What doesn’t make you drop out makes you smarter? I wish.

In the midst of the craziness of ending the school year, I have done the unthinkable, and gotten myself into a relationship. That word made me cringe for a long time. A few of the texts that have been lighting up my phone since this said relationship went on Facebook include little gems like, “The girl who could not be tied down is now Facebook official?? I guess he really is special”. I laughed over text and told the sender of that he couldn’t be that surprised; he was really that shocked.

Hopefully that successfully conveys how most of my friends reacted to my new relationship. I have run from commitment for months, enjoying being carefree and reporting to no one. Underneath my genuine carefree attitude that carried on for months, an internal wrestle match started, in which I began to desire normal and stable, but enjoyed the strength of being a woman in a man’s game of not wanting commitment.

Ever so quickly, this one snuck up on me. Before I could even surprise myself, I surprised everyone else with a real relationship. This one I want to do right, hopefully with more success than doing my homework next semester. I’m taking my lessons in honesty and in breaking hearts, and attempting some wisdom ahead of time. But let’s be real, I attempt a lot of things. Lady luck hates me.

A while ago I hinted at a post about about learning to surf. It has also been six weeks since my last post. In other words, life has been out of hand and I haven’t been writing. What I’m coming to realize is that that also means I’m not processing as much. The past six weeks have been a lull in schoolwork and a surge of life. I have embraced this few week break from the hammer of homework open heartedly, living it up with the most free time I’ve had since freshman year. Life comes in waves like this. Unfortunately, one can never be prepared for the worst ones.

As with life, one can only be so prepared for something as big and unpredictable as the ocean. Surfing puts you right out in the middle of that unfamiliarity, with sets of waves often large enough to knock you under water for what seems like hours. The biggest obstacle in learning to surf for me was the waves themselves. The first time I went in the water, I was absolutely terrified of these four-foot waves that I couldn’t read at all. Four feet doesn’t sound too bad, right? Wrong. When you’re lying down on a board, four-feet looms over your head like a manager on a power trip. I couldn’t paddle away from them, I couldn’t stop them, and for that first hour, nowhere felt safe. I spent at least the first two weeks out in the water just letting the waves roll under me, figuring out when they were about to crash on my head, and when I was relatively safe. Surfing scared me more than anything I’d ever done, so I had to keep doing it. I was strangely fearful of looking back and knowing I was too scared to do something well.

I still can’t really surf, but I try to surf a few times a week. The waves are no longer terrifying, and instead relaxing and humbling. They are out of my control and I can only know so much about them. Learning to surf has taught me two important lessons:

1.     Face your fears. There is no feeling better than conquering something that had the potential to limit you forever.

2.     Life is like waves; you can only prepare yourself to an extent. Learn what you can, let them roll under you when they’re too big, and don’t take your eyes off of what is to come.

All in all: Procrastination leads to revelation, surprises are fun (never let predictable be in your self-description), and waves are incredible. 

Oversimplification

It feels a little bit like getting multiple piercings, with a thick needle on a thick piece of skin, and right on top your bones. The body responds to pain with a flood of endorphins, a chemical that is involved in excitement. In search for this flood of endorphins underlies some really crazy actions. For some however, it leads to tattoos. The pain of getting my first tattoo on my ribs yesterday was strangely bearable. It was indeed quite painful, but I felt like I could endure it for quite a long time. Tattoos are permanent; I will forever have Greek lettering on my ribs. I chose the word agape, meaning perfect, unconditional love. Not only is love the most important aspect of life, but unconditional love is the highest meaning, and the only truly permanent aspect of an identity. I know I hinted at a post about surfing, but I haven’t stood up yet, so as soon as I accomplish that goal some time after my fresh tattoo heals, that post will come and rock. Oversimplification is not a simple word at all, ironic.

Although everything in life, apart from unconditional love, is at risk of changing, I am a firm believer that life goes on and one should never dwell, however actions have consequences. In the process of simplifying life, I have forgotten this fact. Life is as simple as you let it be but I have let it be too simple. In the midst of this care-free lifestyle, I left out a very important side of friendships and relations; put yourself in others’ shoes. It is so important to live day by day, however that does not mean without regard for those you are blessed to spend time with.  

Honesty is the biggest form of respect you can give. When being honest with anyone, it demonstrates the magnitude of the value you have for him or her. It also demonstrates how much you are willing to put him or her first. This lesson is drilled into your mind all growing up, yet somehow it never ceases to escape me in a shortage for words. With my “who cares?” attitude in full swing, I also let this slip my mind recently. In a nutshell I have managed to live selfishly and dishonestly in a friendship, all at the expense of another person. I’m a winner if you haven’t picked that up yet.

As I mentioned before, no event should ever be regretted because if you have taken a lesson from it, it was worth it. However sometimes, especially for me, shit hits the fan and that’s easier said than done. Taking your own advice seems to be marginally harder than I thought as well, but here I am biting the crap out of my nails (figuratively), trying to smile sweetly at the bitter lessons I’m learning as I fumble through these college years.

Carpe Diem, carefully. The saying should really go like this, “Carpe Diem, with others in mind, always being honest”. 

"Don't look back in anger, I heard you say"

Yes, the title of this is from a Rock Band song. I am a die-hard Rock Band fan. The drums are my forte, but at the expense of tooting my own horn, I am above average at guitar and singing. Rock Band was even on my top five things I missed my freshman year of college, preceded only by siblings, home-cooked food, and Celicia (see earlier posts for an introduction to my charming car). At least I am skilled at something in life, a video game.

I haven’t written a post on here in while, however I’ve started several that never got finished and probably never will. I’m discovering I write best when I have something to sort out in my head. Sitting here trying to communicate, organize, and put words to everything in my obscure, fast mind is oddly therapeutic. I should be studying for my two exams next week, Organic Chemistry (O-Chem) and Genetics on back-to-back class days, however instead there’s a lot on my mind about nothing academic. Another few lessons are in the making, from determination and facing fears in learning to surf (next post preview!) to boys it has been an interesting month. Good update from last post: as I was hoping, the big man upstairs provided. My tax return is more than enough to live off of for the rest of the semester. I can take money out of my worries with a paid off credit card and a cushion to leave out of my thoughts.

True confession: I make up words to songs and rarely get caught. I got caught Tuesday. It was awkward.

No one can truly prepare you for how much you will change in your late teens to early twenties. Everyone says that, so I accept how cliché I’m sure I just sounded and let’s move forwards. The decisions we make daily, the people we surround ourselves with, and the fortunate (or unfortunate) happenings of life, make up an identity. Psychology has spent countless studies on identity and confidence; for example Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs states that one can become “self-actualized” when they have met all the needs of an identity. Although each of the ideas listed for this self-actualization are very important, and some I do consider vital, I’m realizing people simply grow. I grow. God gave us an incredible ability to think, reason, and decide for a purpose and a big part of that reasoning is maturity.  

I have never met a mature person that had yet to crash and burn. In fact, the people I look up to most for wisdom and maturity fought, often fighting themselves. What most people call mistakes are the most important learning incidents. We all have that forehead slapping moment where we made a hasty decision, didn’t make a decision at all, or simply evaluated wrong. However it is at that moment that we slap our foreheads, that we will then evaluate differently next time. This is all we can be thankful for and expect from ourselves.  

I don’t believe in regrets, but this is no excuse to make all the intentional “mistakes” your heart (or head) desires. In making decisions, approach with your best judgment, be honest with yourself, and prayerfully consider all options. If at one time, you considered a decision to be the best one, you cannot disrespect that later. Take the lessons and move forwards.  

The Grass Is Always Greener... If You Water It.

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve written anything, this is partially due to business of starting a new semester, and partially due to the fact that nothing has struck me as writeable lately. However recent developments in a friend’s old (and terribly unhealthy) relationship, a new job I quit a day later (that’s a story in itself), and a few odd weekends, my life has once again returned to just as quirky as last semester.

I thought I was ready to return the life of a restaurant worker when this semester started, mostly because I am extra-broke, meaning more broke than usual; however I tricked myself, typical. The lure of free-flowing waitress cash led me to a new restaurant in Santa Barbara last Saturday night. I also tricked myself into thinking I was ready to handle another awful boss, throwback to my senior year of high school working under an insecure, power thriving, passive aggressive Spanish chef with a tendency to cry and make my life miserable. The man interviewing me from this new restaurant reminded me creepily much of this woman from my authority-issue years, with his broken English, bossy nature, and excellent food creating skills. After starting a night at this new restaurant and finding out you cannot serve alcohol in California until you are 21 (18 in Washington), and therefore waitress at all under 21, I realized I was not ready to again sacrifice all my free time for this free-flowing cash. After an awkward phone call explaining why it simply was not a good fit for me to continue to train there, when I really just hated the boss and wanted more money than I was going to make, I returned to my peculiar nannying job. Let me rephrase that; I thought I returned to my nannying job. I got a phone call two days later letting me know that the family would like me for different days of the week. I have yet to figure out what other days those are or when else I can fit some crazy kiddos into my crazy nerdy lab schedule. For now, I have no expected income, a dwindling bank account, and some faith that the Big Man Upstairs is going to make something happen.

While I was sitting through an exceptionally long church service this morning about interpretation of the bible, my mind wandered (oops) to interpreting situations. As shown by many statistics, two people can watch an incident and each walk away with a different perception of the same happening. Recognizing, understanding, and respecting that other’s past and identity shape even current interpretation of life is a profound social skill. However this post is not about social interactions, nor is it about respecting the perspective of others; it is instead about learning your own perspective. Your unique perspective significantly shapes your reaction to every day interactions, and most importantly, life’s most difficult situations.

The measure of a strong person is not how they carry out every day actions, but instead how they respond to being stressed and stretched. Part of life is dealing with situations we would like to opt out of but fortunately (yes I meant fortunately) we cannot, consequently shaping the strong into stronger, and exposing the weak as quitters. Tying one’s perspective into a strong person, I think you have a choice as to how you face these difficult situations. In the storm of a hard time, no matter one’s past influence on current perspective, one has a choice as to how he or she responds the situation. You have control over your perspective. I would encourage all that are facing a difficult situation to choose to conquer.  

A few things I realized today: Celicia (my car, see previous posts for an explanation for her difficult life) is older than most of my friends (DOB circa 1990). She is a little hyperactive, revving up non-stop in neutral. I have yet to make the sign to stick to my window saying, “No, sorry, I don’t want to race you, my car just sucks that bad”. On one hand, I have a $600 car that could break down any moment, sucking gas, and embarrassing me on a daily basis. On another hand I have no car payments, cheap insurance, and a way to get around with relatively good gas mileage. In someone’s eyes (occasionally my own), I am drowning in student loan debt, pinching pennies, all for some form of what America calls education right now. However, I am choosing to take the chance to pursue my dream of being a doctor, learning lessons such as how to work hard, picking up a few social skills at college, and making some friendships I hope last until I stop breathing one day.

Life is never easy, if you think it is no one likes you and you don’t know it. Grab this beautifully difficult life by the ears and say, “I’m going to show you what I’m made of”. Good luck finding life’s ears. Just kidding, that’s all hypothetical. Recognize your perspective on life; be thankful for the lessons you take away from the most difficult days, and never stop counting your blessings. No one feels like they have everything, but in truth you have everything you need if you let it be all you need.