School Supplies

Tonight I sat at my desk. Staring at my computer. Picturing a blank Word document with a blinking cursor inside my head. Get up. Move. Do something productive. I didn't. My temples aching, nausea beginning. Of course. It is, afterall, me, the same girl who always shuts down under the stress of a new environment. I begin every new endeavor with the gusto of a kid on the first day of school. New school supplies equal new beginnings in my mind. I wonder if it's bad luck to be starting this "semester" with half used notebooks and three ring binders that pop open if you turn too many pages at once. But, it's not really school. It's a quasi-job under the mask of university credit that is leaving me hanging in limbo between undergraduate and real world person. Does that require a new notebook?

Did you ever feel like new school supplies seemed old and wrinkled more quickly than they should? I did. Maybe because I was the kid who couldn't keep my desk clean for more than an hour after the weekly, mandatory, clean out your desk days. I was always finding the weirdest stuff in there. That's how I feel about my new space in this new city. It was so perfectly set up a day ago. I already have a stay coffee mug on my desk, running shoes on my rug, and jeans that I took off and left where they fell. A personal trademark. When I still lived at home, my mom used to say it looked like my pants were going to walk off without me. Trying to be really clean stresses me out, but then again, so does a big mess. That is such a typical thing for me to say. I panic in all new environments, immediately wanting to get back to the last place I was. The funny thing is, the utopia I crave I was once resisiting. Right now I want to be in London circling free entertainment in the Time Out magazine, using the glorious public transportation and wandering aimlessly, absorbing the energy of a fantastic city. Even more, I'd love to be back at TASIS collecting attendance forms, making 15 year old girls turn out their lights, going for pints at the Red Lion. I miss it so much now, you never would've guessed that I spent my first days there feeling miserably out of place, wishing I had never accepted the job. Actually, you probably could guess it. I can rewind through all the different stages of the past 4 years and see the pattern. Hell turns to heaven. Misery to glee. Enemies to friends. If I can see that it always happnens, why can't I stop my worry now? Because, I'm sure this is going to be the time it doesn't work out. This time, it actually sucks. Thought that every other time too.

This time is a little different I guess. Usually, I know where the next phase is taking place. That predeterminded ending of the semester or departure date is always the begining of a new block of time that I have already planned. The end of the semester means a holiday season at home or a summer abroad. The departure date means I head for class. Of course, with a class schedule that I meticulously mapped out the year before, avoiding Friday classes and early mornings. Now, this last planned out block of time isn't really the beginning of anything definite. Mid-December marks the end of my internship, the end of college, and the beginning of....the rest of my life?

Now my head really hurts.