The future and fairytales

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to improve one’s self. About how you go about doing that, how you grow and change things to be better. If you want to get in shape, you do daily exercise, you go to the gym, you run, and you take direct measures and do specific things to achieve fitness. But how is one to go about changing themselves? Improving sounds nice and it is a cute idea and goal but when it comes down to it, I have rarely seen someone decide to change and do so. It usually takes an event or traumatic experience to induce change and that isn’t a person deciding to do so. In all the classic novels you see a character put into extraordinary circumstances; a death, a quest, a betrayal, and from there they are forced to grow up. I have wondered about being in Spain and if this is my “quest” but at the same time what is so traumatic about studying in a new place. I could probably have gotten the same level of change if I went to Texas for college.

The fact that I am overanalyzing the “meaning” of being here doesn’t really surprise me. I have spent a lot of my life wondering who it is that I am supposed to be, what my purpose is, who I will grow up to be. Worrying about the future is probably completely normal, but I have never been a patient person. This past summer, much to my horror and surprise, I spent three days in bed after being broken up with crying, eating, and wondering what the hell was wrong with the world. After being forced on a five hour hike (half of which I spent crying and the other half being grumpy) I realized that maybe things like getting your heart broken and having to move forwards are the real, modern day trials. There is a reason books are classics: they are the stories that someone dreamed of; if we all lived “classics” there would be no reason to read a book. You can read a book and escape reality, escape the heart breaks and the doubt and live someone else’s life where every trial results in positive growth and you can dream of that. So here I am, spending another day in bed, and contemplating if my life is worth writing a novel about. Which it isn’t, but isn’t that the dream? To be having adventures worthy of life changing growth?

Perhaps I put too much stock in the idea of being the best… I have always had this fear of coming in second. Which goes to show how competitive I am, regardless of the whole “I really don’t care” attitude I pretend to have. On top of wanting to be the best though comes the problem that I am "good" at everything. That sounds very arrogant, but I can get an A in just about any class and am yet to feel like I am really engaged or learning. Education should be about provoking your mind and stretching your ideas, which is why I think it was necessary that I came here. There was no way that learning accounting or statistics was going to make some triggering mental activity happen. Now is when I wish I would have a book of answers from God, telling me what I need to do with my life, and if banking on the hope that I will love business regardless of having taken only two classes for my major is a good plan. I’d love to keep taking writing classes but who can bank a future on the idea that you’ll teach students to write. I have fairly limited desire to ever be a teacher, and the chance of getting a job writing sarcastic things and rants about not having any idea who I am is pretty non-existent.

Anyway, back to the whole idea of growth. My dad emailed me last week telling me about how proud he was that I am here, learning to be alone. Which was super sweet and confusing, because girls especially spend so much time sitting around worrying about being alone. Every single one of my favorite movies, favorite shows, favorite books and favorite songs are about the undeniable love in life. I decided, while spending three days in bed, that I would never date someone who didn’t love country music, because they have to listen to it to know what they are up against and to be able to be like “ps this song is what I would sing to you if I had any singing talent.” From as far back as I can remember I was forcing Emma or Matt or Drew to marry me. Emma and I would spend hours making houses and forts in the snow, taking care of baby dolls by the fire, and watching Disney movies. We grow up dreaming of that guy that will think you look adorable when you look like you got hit by a bus, are totally sick and haven’t showered in three days. I know guys like that are out there, cause my dad is that guy, but when you see so many girls letting guys walk all over them, so many girls settling for less than what they deserve it gets discouraging. We can tell ourselves daily that we don’t care about relationships but let’s be real: every girl wants to be pursued, cherished, and seen as worth giving up every other girl for. Not only are we faced with the doubts about who we are as a person, but also with who we will fit with, who will love us just as we are. That leaves us not only with the idea that we need to grow and change for ourselves to be better, but also that we need to be thinner, prettier, stronger, more confident and theoretically perfect in order to find that guy that will think we are all those things. Which is twisted, really, because if you had to be all those things there would be no real love, no love that overlooks the extra five pounds you put on or the mad hair you have when you get up in the morning. Isn’t there something hopelessly romantic about Tom Hanks taking Meg Ryan flowers in You’ve Got Mail when she looks like utter hell and he can still look at her with that “I adore you and think you are one hot mess” look. Don’t get me wrong I am all about dressing up and trying to get my hair to lay right, but maybe my dad is right and the true beauty of being alone is that you are happy and whole in the presence of just yourself. Then, once you have that ability to love who you are, it won’t matter if you aren’t perfect. Because you will be perfectly you. And the person who is perfect for you will love that. At least, that’s my theory.

Inevitably, I am still in bed contemplating the idea of growth and growing up. I hoped to come here and immediately be fluent in Spanish, be European and fabulous with lots of new clothes and a busy crazy life, but in reality I am far from fluent, am wearing all the same clothes I brought with the exception of the socks and jacket I lost, and spend an unacceptable amount of time worrying and watching Glee wishing I could sing. Figuring out how to improve, how to have all the answers and how to be on top of life is probably slightly unrealistic. But I can’t stop thinking that I obviously ended up here for a reason, so if God would hurry up and get over it and show me what that was, I would be very appreciative. My old habit of reading the last page of a book is not applicable to life, which is such a bummer because I would love to know how it ends. Perhaps that is the whole point of being here though… I have to be patient and stop trying to rush and control life. Spain is the ultimate test for a control freak: regardless of how hard you try, the system will never let you control it. Another year is coming to an end, and my to-do list once again involves figuring out who I am. But maybe this year I will mix it up, maybe the point is that you don’t figure out who you are, you just are. And each day you become more yourself. It could be that the whole idea of changing or improving is just part of life, that, like in the classics, you rarely see it coming and unless you are an AP English student you might not even realize it happened. So until then, I suppose I will stick to writing rants and hoping that when some exciting story comes along, I’ll have a long enough attention span to sit down and write about it. Starting with the last page, of course.