69.8 miles: Becoming a Responsible Adult

This post would not be complete without a reference to Hyperbole and a Half. Thank you Allie Brosh, you're awesome. Etc. That comic made me laugh...and cry a little on the inside. Because it was true...

I was talking to my mom yesterday. I was like "I really need to get my s**t together and become a responsible adult." [s**t added for emphasis. I didn't actually say it like that. Also it was in Russian.]

"Yes," replied my mother. "Me too."

I laughed hysterically.

List of responsible-adult things I have skills in doing:

• My laundry.
• Making food. Real food. With vegetables.
• Thorough cleaning and minor home repairs.
• Homework.
• Showing up/paying bills/doing things on time. Proof: I don't miss intercity buses or have overdue bills when there are consequences (having to get a new bus ticket or pay fines).
• Managing money. As in, not spending so much of my paycheck I'm uncomfortable with it. I'm pretty sure I live frugally, and feel like I'm not. :)
• Working out.
• Going to bed on time and waking up at a reasonable hour/early. If I either need to or both want to and got enough sleep.
• Tracking something about myself (I refuse to think I am incapable of jotting down a note every day).

List of responsible-adult things I don't actually do:

• My laundry, until I'm procrastinating or run out of something.
• Making real food. Microwave pizza? Sign me up. 3x a week. >_<
• Cleaning. Until I live in a sty.
• Homework, on time.
• Anything, on time that doesn't have such dire consequences (i.e. where an apology will do...or when I'm only breaking a promise to myself).
• Manag...actually I'll give myself this one. I do manage my money. :D
• Working out. Mostly, due to not finding time to when I have time and energy and outdoor light and tennis shoes and...get the picture?
• Going to bed on time, which logically leads to not getting enough sleep or getting up on time.
• Tracking something about myself (e.g. weight, temperature, hours spent on the internet, etc.)

Sometimes, I feel like I'm not doing as well in grad school as in undergrad (although my grades are unchanged), but frankly I'm just looking at it differently.  I'm looking for more balance in my life than I had before. I'm less willing to give up things like gym days (ok, I only have one, but I've kept it up since August, even though I skipped one for an important occasion, so that's a start! :) ), or trips to Chicago on my weekends.  I'm not just throwing myself at my work in fits and bursts, I'm trying to find a passion and a drive for it, in the context of a lifestyle that will be sustainable.  Balancing my work, my health/self/body, and my personal/social life.  I have a responsibility to all of these, and while I can't neglect my work and personal life to take care of my body (in the sense of committing to some insane program or whatever), I also can't neglect the other things.   I need my socialization for happiness and joy, and my work for a sense of accomplishment. I need all these things to be fulfilled.

The problem, as ever, is time.  Wanting to be home to cook a tasty and delicious dinner (rather than having reheated leftovers twice a day :/) but also wanting to get a workout in.  Wanting to be around for an evening study group, too.  

Today went surprisingly well...I crashed around 10 PM last night because I noticed myself getting distracted and knew that 4 hours of work without distraction (4-8AM) would be worth more to me than 4 hours of work with an AIM conversation in the background (10PM-2AM)...I would also be more awake and focused.  And strangely enough, today, again, I am noticing that my time now is worth less (productivity-wise) than my time in the morning would be.

Of course,  I also had weird energy swings today as a result...but all in all, surprisingly well-rested for what turned out to be more like 5 hours of sleep.

So for the sake of experiment, I'm trying to reallocate my time this week. I'm becoming a morning person for as long as I can sustain it (i.e. it might just be tomorrow, or it might be all week).  I doubt it'll continue indefinitely...but maybe it will cement this feeling of KNOWING that I can reallocate my time. That time tomorrow may actually be more valuable than time today...while I have always mentally understood this, it was hard on an emotional level...sometimes, I just want today to continue, because I don't have to do anything else today...but with tomorrow come new responsibilities.  This is a terrible mindset...there is nothing to fear in tomorrow.  Tomorrow is opportunity, and freedom, and (let's face it) weekday tomorrows bring us closer to weekends, and good things happen on weekends :)

So, this week? Looking forward to tomorrows. Doing Things in the morning, before work. Taking the 8:18 bus. Being A Responsible Adult, the trial run.

Hey, I can always go back to a student lifestyle next week. ;)

Birthday

Today, I am 23.

I guess nothing really happens at 23, but it feels important to me.  23 is a very adult age.  It's no longer a (typical) college-age. Most 23 year olds have jobs.  It's not a weird age to get married, or have children. It's also not a weird age to...not get married and not have children. To enjoy one's independence, be a workaholic during the week, and party on the weekend, and possibly date.  23 is a fun age, but also an age where you feel you should know what you want.  You are working on the rest of your life now; not on experimenting or preparing...it's now. It's happening. You need to be working for it.  You and no one else. It's a lot terrifying, and also a bit empowering.

I wake up this birthday in the exact same location as I did a year ago, which is a rather unusual situation, after college. And yet I enter this year very different than I entered the last year.

This year, unlike last, I didn't gain independence, but I gained confidence in that independence.  Being on my own and taking care of myself is no longer new to me; it's a given.  Last year, going back to the parents would have been embarrassing, but tolerable...now, circumstances would need to be quite severe to warrant living at home again.  I didn't really gain new experience in this field, but I've gained distance, perspective, self-assurance.  I'm in a good place.

This year, I lost something...and gained something.  I can't say I have a new special person in my life, nor that an existing person became more special, since I felt he already was.  But I got something I really wanted for a very long time, and it's a wonderful, wonderful feeling.  Over the past years, I have learned a fair bit about love through this person, and looking back, I can put it into words.  I can understand why my mom insisted that unrequited love was crucial to emotional development. Perhaps I'm wrong in the conclusions I drew, and I will learn with time. For now, I believe I have learned that true love (the good, pure love we all seek) is non-possessive.  To explain this would take longer than I wish to commit here; if you want, we can talk about it.  Let me just finish for now with: love is a great feeling. Requited love is a fantastic, mind-blowing feeling.  And I'm really glad I got to have that experience, again.

This year, I got another kind of love, too.  Beautiful, unconditional love from one's own blood.  I got to see family I hadn't seen in 10 years.  And 16 years. And never (because Ivan is 12).  I got to stand on 'my' soil once more.  I quote because...because some of the time on 'my' soil, I felt very much the stranger, the outcast, even a foreigner.  Nonetheless...seeing places I had stepped as a very, very young child, remembering things I should have forgotten, laughing and crying with people I was inexplicably close to after only a few days (that I remember) in their company...and putting flowers on graves.  My trip to Russia was, overall, bittersweet. Not that anything bad happened; just sadness at having missed events and people, also at realizing that my life was not there no matter how hard I tried or how often I visited...That an entire branch of my family was now no longer fated (I think) to continue on Russian soil.  More sadly, that everything my grandparents and great grandparents had worked their butts off for, to pass off to their children, was impossible to pass to us.  Or even if it was, that it would fall into disrepair and ruin...And my children won't have the ancient family dacha they could have (in a very different life) had, full of relics of the Soviet 1960s, their test pilot great-great-grandfather, etc. One which I, if ever so briefly, got to experience. I am lucky in that.

Speaking of family, this year, mine moved away.  Farther away than I can go visit for a weekend.  Far enough that I will probably not see them more than once a year...though maybe twice, if I'm lucky.  It's strange and sometimes unsettling, but I can laugh about the fact that as usual, my parents had to reverse 'the way of things' and move away from their kid instead of the other way around.  I applied to graduate schools everywhere; it was convenient having my family three hours away, but something I was willing to forgo for my education. And now, I have to. It's not surprising. Again, bittersweet.  Bitter to be far from people I care about, sweet to know I can handle it, and again bitter to realize how little it affected me, how easily I made that transition.

Which brings us back to...growing up. Growing older. Growing wiser. It's all happening.  Sometimes, it puts a spring in my step. Other times, it makes me want to curl up in a ball in bed and never climb out.  I guess that's life, overall. I had a tumultuous year. Other interesting things happened...I made some new friends. I opened a savings account. I found out my credit score. I got an office with a window. I got drunk; like, really drunk.  I sent a package through international mail.  I got a television. I made borscht.  A lot of milestones.  I'm sure I have a lot left to go, though.

This year, I hope I can buckle down and find the balance and maturity I've sought for many years now (I know, how likely is that? But a girl can hope.)  Somehow, I feel like this year, for me, has been the growing experience most people have when they start college.  I let go of some of my previous convictions and tried new things, and they worked out pretty well, overall.  However, it's time to remember that I'm here for a reason, and I'm working for something.  That I'm trying to get results, to draw conclusions, to become a scholar.  A creator, distributor, and trader of knowledge.  An expert.  I don't know what this says about me...but no matter how down I was when I went back to that decision, I always had to confirm that, yes, I do believe I have it in me to be all these things.  That's something.  So, here's to 23.  Here's to trying earnestly with every fiber of my being to be healthy, happy, and also accomplished for another year!