Changes

On Saturday, I went to tour Castleton's campus. It was exciting and terrifying all at the same time. I had decided early in this semester that I was going to transfer for next spring, but now that the time has finally arrived and I'm almost there, I'm scared. I don't know why exactly. I'm nervous to live away from home for the first time. I don't know how long it will take to become friends with my roommate. I'm not 100% sure about the food (from what they had available during lunch, or brunch as it's called on the weekend when they serve omelettes and chocolate chip pancakes at noon.) It's certainly not home cooked meals. I just suddenly unsure, but it's going to happen.

I'm confident about some things though. I'm looking forward to the new learning environment, to the teachers that I've met and all the potential courses. I'm excited about my major; Global Studies. (I'm not too thrilled with the need for 12 credits in a language alone, but there are worse things.) I get to travel abroad for a semester, it's required for a Global Studies major. I might become a journalist because of my degree, and I am just excited for my future, even though I have no idea what it will really hold. It's all unknown at this point, with a lot changes about to happen, so it's completely terrifying but amazing all at the same time.

Long Post Alert

I've been watching Slam Poetry for the better part of the night. Here are some of my favorites.

On Happiness

“Don’t ever put your happiness in someone else’s hands. 

They’ll drop it. They’ll drop it every time.” 

—  Christopher Barzak

I hadn't ever thought of anything like this. (Maybe one day I'll be able to coin my own inspirational thoughts that people will blog about, or post in Facebook statuses or on Twitter, but not today.) I am the only person who is in control of my happiness, which makes sense. When I depend on others to "make" me happy, I'm usually not. I can be happy because of other people, but they don't control my happiness. 

To This Day

I first saw this video on Tumblr (thanks Justina!) a week or so ago. I've been thinking about it ever since. I've decided to share my own To This Day experience.

So as many of you know, depression took over my life my sophomore year of high school. I was still involved in many school activities though, trying to hide how this invisible disease had taken over my life. I was in Student Council, National Honor Society, I played soccer, I managed Varsity softball, and I was class secretary. As class secretary, I was just supposed to take notes and make sure everyone knew when the meetings were, but as the school year went on, I had to start taking on more and more. I was coming up with class fundraisers and designing bulletins by my self. I was organizing events like a 50/50 raffle and middle school dances and trying to organize meetings, because we had Junior Prom to start thinking of for next year. I was doing everything by myself. Every time I tried to get someone else involved or tried to get someone else's input, they'd blow me off or tell me point blank that they didn't care. So I took over completely. I had decided to make my classes problems personal. I was Atlas, holding everyone else up above me, when I let go.

I got sick the day before a scheduled movie day I had single-handedly planned. I got permission to use the schools library; I wrote, signed and addressed permission slips to parents; I got an after school bus for kids who's parents wouldn't be picking them up for free. I did everything, but by the end of that planning, I was so stressed out. Thursday afternoon, before the movie day, the softball team I managed had a game in the pouring rain and I got sick. I didn't go to school the next day. I texted, emailed, and Facebooked everyone who had "agreed" to help with the event that everything was taken care of, all they had to do was set everything up. I didn't get a reply from anyone.

I came to school on Monday and the world I had been trying to hold up for so long had crashed all around me. My "friends" were angry at me and wouldn't tell me why. I was replaced as class secretary that week, without being told there was a class meeting where the entire class would vote. Apparently, they didn't approve of me doing everything on my own and wanted me to include them. I learned a lot that year, about myself, about my classmates, and about the world. It was the first time I realized how much growing up was going to hurt.

To this day, I'm still afraid to take on too much, to really push myself to accomplish something. I'm also afraid to trust other people to help me. I'm scared that if I let people in, they'll be part of what brings me down someday.

These I Can Promise

The reason I titled my blog "What I Can Promise" is largely because of the Mark Twain Poem "These I Can Promise":

These I Can Promise - Mark Twain

I cannot promise you a life of sunshine; 

I cannot promise you riches, wealth or gold; 

I cannot promise you an easy pathway 

That leads away from change or growing old. 

But I can promise all my heart's devotion; 

A smile to chase away your tears of sorrow. 

A love that's true and ever growing; 

A hand to hold in your's through each tomorrow. 

I think this poem holds true to many people's idea of the future and the person they'd like to become. There are a lot of things in life that I can't promise. But I hope to be able to be there for the people in my life, to do all the things this poem lists, to be devoted, to help ease sorrow, to love, and to help someone get through the day. There are a lot of things I don't know, like how many miles it is to the moon, or what the population of Greece is, or what the meaning of life is (although I am starting to think that the meaning of life is to find the meaning in life, which is a whole complicated idea all in its own) but I do know that I have a lot of compassion, and I'd like to be able to share that with the people in my life.

The other reason why I named my blog "What I Can Promise" is because of what I mentioned earlier in class today. I want to make a difference in my life and the society that I live in. I've started that a bit with the work I'm doing with Umbrella, but I want to go further than that. I want to write articles about conflicts in the middle east and about feminism and how the world is entirely unfair. More importantly, I want those articles to be read and talked about, and maybe even change someones idea about something, to make them think in a different way then they did before. I remember the articles in The New York Times that I used to read, the articles in my father's copies of The Rolling Stones, articles in Reader's Digest that would be at my doctors office. All the articles that I remember impacted me in some way. They opened my mind to ideas that I was previously shut to. They made me think about life, how I was living it and how I wanted to begin living it. There are books that I've read that made me think as well. The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald, The Fault In Ours Stars - John Green, As I Lay Dying - Faulkner, Huck Finn - Twain, Where The Sidewalk Ends - Silverstein, Henry V - Shakespeare, The House on Mango Street - Cisneros, 1984 - Orwell, The Color Purple - Walker. Most of these were school assignments, but I ended up loving all of them and they changed me in a way. This is what I want to do with my life. I want to change someone, just by writing down an experience and developing it further, to explore the meaning behind it. This is the type of writer I hope to become.

Kaitlin