Argh.

I’m frustrated and out of sorts.  First off, since classes have started, I’ve noticed that my critical thinking skills have gone to pot.  Not that the classes have made them dive-bomb, but that being required to think even slightly critically has just highlighted how much of a toll the last six years of “civilian” life have taken.  It scares me a little, too - I worked to keep my brain going by reading “non-fluffy” books, and still I find myself in this situation.  Is time spent out of academia necessarily going to atrophy my brain, no matter my attempts to maintain it?

This spills over into non-academic stuff, too.  For whatever reason, I feel like I can’t have the same kinds of “sparkling” conversation that I used to, and that bothers me, too.  I remember how much fun it was at Reed to sit around a table in the Common and banter with my friends, and I don’t really feel like that is much of a part of my life anymore.  I wouldn’t want that to be all the conversation I had (it’s wearing after a while), but to feel like I *can’t* have it anymore is… straitening.

On the social side, I’m also frustrated to notice developing - or, rather, re-developing - within myself the same kinds of self-doubt and desire to be universally liked that plagued - and in some ways ruined - my high school years and first couple of years at Reed.  I thought I had gotten over this!  For instance, it took a real effort (I’m not kidding) to stop myself from going to a party held last Friday by some second-years in my program - and I didn’t even want to go to the party!  I don’t particularly like parties; they aren’t the kind of social setting that I feel comfortable in.  But I was so worried that, if I didn’t go, I would be this social pariah… In the end, it took repeated reminders to myself that people will either like more or not for who I am, and that trying to be someone I’m not, when generally I’m pretty happy with who I am, is both nonsensical and counter-productive, to keep me from going.

All of this - the frustration, the anxiety, the mental molasses -  is producing a huge nostalgia and homesickness in me that I’m finding it hard to assuage.  Sometimes I feel like my life now is so different than it was then as to be irreconcilable, which is a depressing and scary thought. 

What I really want, I think, is to be around some of my close Reedie/PDX friends again.  I miss you, all of you, and I think some time spent in your company would help me… hmm, feel less blurred around the internal edges, perhaps.  And/or I need some time to myself, with no deadlines, external pressures, etc., to ponder myself.  Unfortunately, I am not likely to get much time for either in the short- to medium-term, as a.) those who I would most like to see live, at the closest, in Albany, and at the furthest in Portland, and b.) I’m a full-time grad student and don’t have time for any of that navel-gazing nonsense.  ::sigh::