On summer and plans...

For the past few weeks all my free time and creative energy have been dedicated to planning trips, looking for apartments and dealing with hurt/anger issues. The latter, given my history, has not been a very pleasant experience, but at least I’ve come out of it having learned one important lesson, which I will slightly touch upon a few paragraphs later. The former has surprisingly been a rather pleasant and entertaining activity, especially the part that involves my almost wistful obsession about going places and seeing/doing things. In the past, despite the fact that a lot of my work responsibilities often required a great amount of planning, scheduling and event coordinating, when it came to personal matters, I was probably the world’s worst planner ever. I would describe myself as the opposite of a control freak, and rather than obsessing over every single detail to make sure that I had everything under control, I’d get easily discouraged by even the smallest thing going wrong and would simply stand aside watching all the tentative plans unravel and fall apart, all the while feeling most inadequate and helpless to try and do anything about it. Since then, either thanks to my two major moves in the past two years or having been in situations that required urgent decision making and quick actions, I have become more “seasoned” or “better conditioned” in dealing with the aforementioned shortcomings.

Trip planning can be fun at times – especially when you realize that your desired destination may only be a mouse click away, when making hotel reservations is no longer seen as a “core-shaking” experience and when I’ve so far learned about the benefit of asking, firmly expressing preferences and being open and flexible enough to compromise. It’s just a fucking trip, for god’s sake, and not a lobotomy, you would think.

So this new and “better conditioned” or “more resourceful” self (whichever way you’d like to look at it) has been having a lot of fun in one of the most dreaded activities of the past – planning. And that, in fact, has opened a whole lot of options that I never even considered before. It’s great to know that DC is only a train ride away, that flying to Boston is not like crossing the Atlantic (which I have, quite a few times in the past), that sometimes all it takes is to nicely ask “can we please, please go back to Charlottesville one more time,” to be able to get that much desired day trip. And that the thought of attending a wedding where I hardly know anybody does not necessarily have to be pictured as medieval torture. And perhaps with further careful planning and budgeting I may even be able to actualize the much longed for visit to Charleston this summer. Maybe, still tentative, I’m keeping my fingers crossed, till then, there are other trips to look forward to and make my summer eventful.

As for apartments, I started looking way too early, or as they’d say in the parlance of the region – too wicked early. Am I slowly becoming a control freak, I wonder? Last year, a big part of my not being able to go to school was because I was too unprepared and too freaked out to even see it happening. This year, I rather have everything done sooner, than later, especially when at this point I can finally see it happening. I have a few places lined up to go and see during my short visit at the end of June (yup, the trip to Boston!), one place in particular that I am so interested in, that I’m willing to pay a deposit without even having seen the place. I will have a lot more peace of mind and one less thing to worry about when I know that the living arrangements have been taken care of.

As for hurt and anger – although in itself it is too big of an issue to try and get into at the moment, one lesson that I learned is that going to bed angry gives you bad dreams and is bad for digestion afterwards, and I rather avoid conflict if for nothing else, at least to not have to deal with shooting pains in the abdomen. But more on this later…

For now, I am really, truly enjoying what is left of my stay in Richmond. Although I know that I will be sad leaving, I am actually looking forward to the move, to the change, to a different pace and a completely different feeling of freedom that being a student entails. I also know that I will be coming back to Richmond quite often, which makes it much easier to deal with emotions. And I can get, very, VERY, almost unbecomingly emotional at certain instances. Yet, I am happy, and hopeful, and excited… It’s summer, time for painted toenails and flimsy dresses and blended iced coffees and lots and lots of strawberries… Back to listening to Counting Crows for hours at a time, dreaming of that holiday in Spain and drawing butterflies and wings and other pretty things. August is not here yet. There still are quite a few days left. A whole new summer still to be lived. And of course, some impossible blockbuster movies to be suffered through, I'm sure.