“Whatever happened with that guy you were interested in before?”

Here we go, self complaint time:

Something fairly recent that I discovered about myself is that I’m a bad listener. I suppose I’ve known this for a while, but when I really began to notice it was last year.  I reconnected with some of my high school friends when I visited home over Thanksgiving, and we were reminiscing about school and our classmates and teachers, and I was shocked at how much they remembered about me.  I guess firstly I should say that I like to talk – a lot, and a good portion of it is complaints, too.  I just kind of blabber on to whoever is around me, and usually to my good friends.  Often I don’t remember exactly who I say something to when I am upset or excited about something…..and so naturally, I was amazed when three+ years later, my high school friends remembered random details of my life that even I had forgotten about.

It gave me a warm feeling, for lack of a better adjective, to know that they had cared enough about me – and probably still care today – to really absorb what I had said several years ago and still remember it.  And it also felt awful when I reflected on it later and discovered that I could hardly remember anything that I did with those people, or anything personal that they had told me when we were classmates.  It’s not that I dislike them or have forgotten about them or hold any sort of negative feelings towards them.  I just realized – through that and other similar situations – that I am a bad listener.

I think the problem is that in order for me to really absorb what someone is telling me, I need to be 100% paying attention to their speech.  And for some unknown reason, that’s incredibly hard for me to do.  I get too distracted by things – the window, people walking by, my coffee, my phone, the temperature, where I have to be later, random other thoughts I have.  I really really want to listen to them.  And I really really want people to talk to me about their problems.  And I really really want to be able to help them solve their problems and also return to them later when we reconnect after years apart, so I can say, “Whatever happened with that guy you were interested in back in X year?” and we can have something legitimate to talk about.  Although sometimes talking about prior love interests is not a pleasant affair.

I’m honestly trying to make myself into a better listener.  I’m trying to focus all of my attention on whatever person is talking to me at any given moment.  I don’t really know yet whether it’s making a difference, but I sincerely hope so.  I have so many wonderful people in my life that put up with all of my complaints (okay I’m really not as whiny as I’m illustrating myself to be, I promise), and I want to be able to return the favor.  I’m going to have a new roommate over the summer, so perhaps I can start there.

Time for self-reformation!

Missed Moment

My university’s campus is stunningly beautiful.  Sprawling, huge green oaks line the roads that run alongside unique and interesting buildings housing both the students and the academic disciplines, offices, and classrooms.  The place that I eat food every day is a large, circular room of enormous glass windows that open onto my dorm’s quad as well as a long stone pathway lined with the same amazing oak trees.

As much as I appreciate the beauty, and can describe it to a prospective student or curious family member when necessary, I sometimes reflect on how much I take this campus for granted.

I’m nearing the end of my sophomore year, which means that my time at this place is halfway over.  I often find myself – especially on clear, blue-skied, sunny 70-degree days like today – walking through campus and having moments in which I think, “Damn, that building is pretty,” or “If I was visiting campus for the first time right now I would fall in love,” or “Man, I should’ve paid more attention to the beauty of this place when I first came here.” Because the reality is that when I first arrived on campus as a senior in high school visiting the universities that accepted me, I was still upset and hung up on being rejected by my dream school.  I had resigned myself to going to the huge state school that was my back-up, and didn’t even consider my current university.  My mother forced me to come for the admitted student day, and even after I had a bad experience (because of my own negativity, not because of the people I met or the meetings I attended), she persuaded me to choose to come here.

I love my university.  It took me over a year – at some point in the middle of last semester I had the epiphany – to realize that it’s a great place and that I’m actually incredibly happy to be here.  I love my friends, my professors, my classes, my dormitory, my roommate, and my life here.  I’m incredibly saddened when I think about my future of not being here anymore.

And I wish with all my heart that I could go back to that first moment when my parents drove me around campus in our rental car and my mother was ooh-ing and aah-ing at all of the buildings around us.  I wish that I could join her in absorbing that beauty and taking it in for the first time – because I know so well that having your breath taken away the first time you view something amazing is simply the best feeling.

It’s a sad reality that I know I cannot go back to that moment.  But I know that one day far, far down the road, I’ll return to this place as an aged alumni.  And hopefully at that time I can have the feeling second-best after the one of initial viewing: returning to a place where you loved, laughed, and lived, and perhaps then I can really appreciate my beautiful university.

A Reflection of Now

Here’s the current situation:

• Coffee from IHOP
• The basement
• 80’s New Wave music (mixed CDs courtesy of my father)
• A blank notebook

It’s 9:30pm and I’m drinking coffee from my dinner at IHOP with my aunt – wish I could say caffeine doesn’t affect me, but I’m not one of those people.  I’ll be up until probably 3 or 4am.  I’m staying in the house that I grew up in but my cousins are occupying while my parents live out of the country.  They have three young girls, so I’m staying in the basement.  It’s creepy but warm and comfortable, so I’m fine with it.  I’m listening to 80’s New Wave music because for some reason, I’ve been kind of craving the sound of it lately.  And my father – in college in the 80’s and still clearly hanging onto it – was nice enough to make me not one, but two mixed CDs, so I’m set for a while.  I have a blank notebook sitting in front of me because I really like writing short stories out by hand, but maybe it’s the coffee or the basement or the 80’s music (or a mixture of all three), but nothing’s really coming to my head right now.

Ah, well, I have until 3 or 4am for inspiration to strike.  The night is young!