i guess it's no secret that things haven't exactly been the easiest for me these passed couple of...well...years. and i shouldn't be complaining. i, of all people, should be the last person on earth to ever complain about my situation. i mean, i know what i have is amazing. i know that. i know that it's not everyday that a girl from a rural village in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the pacific, winds up with a full scholarship to not only college, but law school as well. i have an amazing, amazing family that is there for me like no one's ever been there for anyone else. i have a beautiful relationship with someone i love more than anything. anything. and my friends are wonderful. so supportive. so fun.
so
i'm not writing this as a complaint. it's not. i don't exactly know what it is at the moment, but i know it's not that. i would never complain about this life
i've been given.
not seriously, anyway. :)
i was looking at a picture of myself last night. have you ever done that? found a picture you rarely ever look at and really study yourself? the things you see...wow. the picture i found was from graduation 2 years ago. just 2 years. such a short period. a blink of an eye. a lifetime. it was a candid shot, my favorite kind.
i'm sort of looking off camera, and if memory serves,
i'm looking at my family. and they're looking back at me. they were so proud of me that day. it almost chokes you up to remember that, you know?
anyhow,
i'm standing outside of husky stadium on a beautiful almost-summer
seattle day, in full graduation gear (cap, gown, tassels, lei). and i have this smile on my face. i usually hate my smiles, but this one...this is one of those
real smiles. i mean, that girl was really,
really happy. i had just completed what had turned out to be 4 amazing years of my life. i would say that they were 4 of the most amazing years of my life, but realistically, that's an untrue statement. because looking back on my life just now, i can say that
kamehameha (intermediate,
highschool) was the most amazing 7 years of my life. but then i could also say that my childhood, living at home, being around my family, my sisters, was the best 11 years of my life.
i've honestly had a pretty fantastic life so far. so we'll just say that college was 4 really amazing years.
who i was during college was who i had always wanted to be. i was self-sufficient, even if i was a little selfish. if i wanted something, be it to stay up all night, to go out of a drink, to run off to
ireland, new
zealand at the drop of a hat. if i wanted it, i went for it. i didn't have to think about anything passed the want, and the getting it. because that was my plan: to take advantage of absolutely
everything i found at my fingertips. in this picture of me, this snapshot of a fantastic day, i was everything i had ever wanted to be. and the people that mattered to be were proud of that person.
so i look at this picture as
i'm sitting in another exhausting 3 hour lecture on some abstract, though extremely important, law that's more acronyms and statutes than useful. and
i'm thinking that this girl in the picture has no idea what she's in for.
i talked to some friends today and we discussed the girl in the picture. i tried to explain to them how i often feel like
i'm this dual person. i said that i feel like that girl has disappeared. i look for her and look for her and look, but i just can't seem to find her most days. what's in her place is not a new person, because
i've always also been very practical and straight-edge. it's part of how i got here, you know? but that person's never really dominated my life because i think i knew that if she did, i would lose a part of myself that meant too much.
i guess in the simplest of terms, because this has just become a bit too weepy for me, i feel like there's a constant battle between what my head says (i.e. practical woman) and what my heart says (i.e. girl in the picture).
and for the last 2 years, i feel like my heart has all but disappeared.
