Writing

Have you ever not been able to sleep because you need to finish a book? I'm like that. I can't sleep unless I've made it to the final page when I'm reading. And I'm finally able to read again. Not the typical textbook requirements from college, but what I want to read and can find.

Lately it's been some fluff, some for fun. I need to get back into it, keep working on the classics. It's funny, that after graduating early from college, I feel like my mind is dull and out of tune. I watched a few things on the history channel tonight, and it felt like trying to scrub mold off a sponge. I'm used to remembering everything that I see and hear. My intellect has stopped working like that. I only hope it's rusty, not gone completely.

Isn't that funny, wondering if your mind is gone? Especially after the "rigors" of college life. At night I tend to think in extremes, in black and white. Tonight, I would say that I'm disappointed with the effort I put forth in college. I put forth minimal effort for each quarter, for the most part disinterested in my lectures and coursework. The rare exception to this was creative writing, and even there I procrastinated until the last possible moment. It's quite pathetic, as college is an opportunity, especially at a school as phenomenal as OSU. And I purposely was bored.

For this I am disappointed. My vocabulary has shrunk to an abysmal level, and my range of thinking that of a teaspoon. I was given every option and took the laissez-faire route as often as I could.

So I wonder, what it would be like for me to go back to grad school? Not full time, but actually working and paying for my own education. If it were a sacrifice for my husband and I, would I work harder? Make myself excel beyond my worth? I hope so. I don't know if I deserve another shot, but it is something I was to try.

I just finished The Secret of Lost Things. I was enraptured by the title, by the books on the cover, by the story of a girl named Rosemary. Also, the bargain bin in Barnes & Noble helped matters in my choice of story. Still, upon reflecting as we do when we finish stories, I'm not sure about it. It was a decent novel, surely, and beautifully crafted. But I can't tell if I like the way writing is going or not. Probably not, since I'm questioning it. It makes me wonder if I can fit in or not.

So I just found my old xanga still online...

And it amazes me that thing's still up there. I have a myspace too. I would shut them both down but I can't remember my passwords.

Xanga seems to chronicle another lifetime for me. Seriously. It's focus was a different age, a completely different mentality and set of people. It was such a social source for me, and for a while held much of private pain and happenings that were going on. So much of the time silly quotes and song lyrics expressed what I was really thinking or feeling...and that was the only place they were expressed. There and no where else. For a while, xanga was very important to me, in many senses of the word.

I've never been wonderful at being completely honest on these online blogs. It terrifies me to think that someone might read something they won't like. That too, is my greatest fear as a writer (and I use that in the broadest sense of the word). Yes it's true. Fearless Rilla is afraid people won't like her.

As much as I've tried to make my way, to be completely honest with myself and others, that still lurks beneath the surface. That doesn't mean I haven't grown into my own, but I still do take into account what others think.

However, instead of making the hidden into something bad, I'm taking a different stance. I don't think it's that terrible to be private about my life anymore. I think it's because I'm married to an incredibly private person, but for whatever reason I don't think it's that bad. I need to socialize still, obviously, but I don't want it to be through aquaintainces on xanga. I guess the people whose opinion I care about has shifted, not the fact that I care.

And that in itself, is a good thing.