Daily Prompt: Complicated

via Daily Prompt: Complicated

[This is a nonfiction post!]

College.

Yeah… Either you’re one of those students that really loves talking college with others or you’re one of those – like me – who absolutely despises it. I’ll avoid college conversations with family and friends because I know that I’m taking a more different route through college than most everyone else that I know.

I didn’t go to a large university right out of high school like every other one of my friends. While they moved to D.C., Los Angeles, Santa Barbara, etc., I stayed in my hometown and went to a community college. Everyone asked why. That’s what I don’t get! Why did I stay? Well, better yet, why not? But instead of going through all of the positives of staying in a small town to go to a community college when I had graduated third in my class (which is not bragging, since again, it’s a small town without many graduates), I just said there were lots of reasons. Lots of complicated reasons that made perfect sense to me and no one else but me.

Now?

I’m three years out of high school and transferring to the closest university to my hometown so I can stay in small, crappy, said-hometown that I love and don’t want to leave. It may be crap, but it’s my crap. To be honest, I’m scared shitless. I start school in eight days. Eight friggin’ days… Why am I scared to go to a school that pretty much everyone is accepted into – a school that I will be driving to only twice a week to attend? It’s complicated. It’s just really, really, really complicated.

There’s absolutely nothing to be terrified of.

Yet, here I sit.

Utterly terrified.

Would frazzled be a better word?

Well, even that’s complicated to explain. I’m just a little on-edge, but a little more than “just a little.”

I think that at this point, everything just seems too complicated. I felt this way before junior high, high school, and community college, so it does make sense to feel this way now. It’s different. It’s new to me. It’s something that I’m excited about but not excited about. I don’t want to go but I’m looking forward to going. Again, it’s just complicated. In two years, I’ll be done with college a year after everyone else from my graduating high school class… Until then, I just need to focus on the moment and not let the “complicated” freak me out too much. I’ll get used to it, right? Everyone does, don’t they?

Girl with a Degree (and a Rough Draft)

What have I been doing these last couple months that have kept me too busy to keep my blog up to date?

Allow me to fill you in.

Watching anime.

Reading manga.

Writing letters.

Editing my novel.

Reading a different novel.

Working the closing shift.

Making friends at work.

Role-playing with said friends from work.

And tomorrow, celebrating my first college degree with same said friends!

Maybe it sounds like I’m making excuses (which I am), but everything just became busy. I want all of you to know what I’m doing, but I’ve been horrible about blogging. I started this blog to give me somewhere to update my writing progress. Now that I’ve finished writing, I’m not even sure if I should continue blogging. Sure, there’s still the editing process. Then there’s all the disappointment of rejection letters from prospective publishers. I’m just not sure… There’s been a lot of uncertainty about my priorities lately, and I’m sorry to say that darn near the bottom of the list is blogging.

Now, for the point of this blog post: I have my first degree. Sure, it’s just an Associates from a junior college, but this is the first step. I’ve had the actual paper since December, but it didn’t really feel like it until all of the graduation dates flew by and the time for drunken celebrations at pubs came along. (Yes, that is how I will be celebrating – at a pub with friends from both jobs that I’ve had and the man in my life). How do I feel about it? For the first time, friends are getting together to celebrate something that I’ve done. I’ve never really had that before, unless it was for birthdays. I feel like I’m making up for lost time – when I didn’t really go out or do much.

One more thing: my friends may not know it, but one of the rounds will be in honor of my completed rough draft. No, I definitely won’t tell them that, but still!