Ooh, I'll be the one who'll break my heart

So yesterday, like any other day, in my life, in the past year, I was feeling disillusioned.

Disillusionment is a funny thing.

So I guess it starts with me generally not knowing who I wake up for in the morning, and then realizing, through an array of circumstances, that I should probably sublet this summer, get my own room, and be with myself for a while.

I had known that part for a pretty long time. Yesterday, I went on a really long walk. I don't know if it was really THAT long, as much as I had needed to get lost, and then find myself, so to speak. Ah, behold: my Henry David Thoreau moment. Bear with me.

It started with an admittedly mentally rough day at work: there was an issue with the seed for the bacteria transformants, and it was stressful. Because of the nature of research, it felt like it was all my fault. Aside from that, I've been questioning how capable I am to do anything; it feels like I've been just coasting through everything I do. So, naturally, like anyone, I ignored my feelings and listened to "This American Life" (the Pen Pal episode) and "Stuff You Should Know" (How Desertification works, Are there people who can't feel pain?, How Braille Works). Unfortunately, I'm super good at making connections between things I hear on TV or the radio and my real life, and thus, I started feeling upset again.

After work, I went to Becca's dorm; it was a pretty blissful walk aside from the way I felt. The sun was bellowing down and I was listening to my iPod and sweating, and pretending to be in a movie scene while walking among the high elevation buildings and hills that are along the road that leads to her door. Becca and I sat outside and had a contemplative discussion about what we're both looking for in life. How I want a Ron to my Hermione rather than an Edward to my Bella or a Harry to my Ginny. I'm not really a mushy person.

It's nice when we can do that. Sometimes I feel like my friends and I just get into a routine and don't stop to think with each other. The more I can talk to my friends about the way I really feel, the more I feel connected to them, the more I feel like I'm not a robot. So it goes.

Then, I went on this walk, which was motivated by a desire to be alone. On campus, the majority of the time, I get done with my day and don't know where I should go. Should I go to Jason's welcoming apartment, where I can lounge and pretend to do my homework? Should I go to Rheta's (the eating establishment in my dorm) where I can eat and socialize and pretend to do homework? Should I go to the Paul Bunyan room where I will definitely get some work done... or should I go to my dorm? Or worse, the basement of my dorm where no one can talk? It's kind of a problem trying to find a place to be alone on campus, because in most places there are people all around you who you kind of know or know well, or have seen several times but don't talk to. So then you're not really alone with yourself, you're alone in the situation. Sometimes, that borders on making you feel lonely.

In college, it's hard to see yourself outside of everyone else, and it's hard to find a good place to have a good cry, something I wanted yesterday but didn't get. I walked and walked and walked and walked. It only took me 10 minutes to find myself in a place I didn't recognize. But it wasn't far; I was just looking at the campus from an angle I hadn't known before. I walked all the way off-campus to where Panera Bread is on University Avenue. That's a distance of around 5 miles from my dorm on winding terrain and it took me about an hour and 15 minutes. The whole time I kept having an inkling that I might run into someone I know. Halfway through my mother called me and I told her that I'm subletting; she was a little sad but generally okay with it.

Every time I would want to run into someone I know, a part of me banished the thought. It made me really mad that I always thought this way. Why did I have to spend time I was alone hoping to see someone I know? In any case, I always get really surprised when I see people out of context.

It also weirded me out that so many people were on the path; people were running with their kid's in strollers in front of them, there were people who looked like they were doing some kind of ecological research on the lake, there was this couple hugging, there were the lone riders, and there were sets of girls running together. Next to them, I felt wholly unimpressive, but I kept walking anyway. I felt pretty uncomfortable, because I was sure everyone could tell that as I walked I was thinking really hard, which I don't like to do in the presence of others in case they can read minds or something. It was one of those strange alienating feelings I have been getting a lot lately; I did not want to talk to anyone I knew at all; I did not even want to remember they existed. I especially did not want to be noticed by these strangers.

It's always just kind of confused me that people go running outside. I feel like they are sweaty and vulnerable and feeling out loud, but they do it anyway. I was the same way, yesterday. Sweaty, feeling; crazy confused, but still walking. I guess the running part allows you to get away from the situation fast should you pass through an awkward stretch.
I do realize that I'm self-alienating here. Shouldn't I be happy that I never have to be alone?

At this point, I was having hunger pains and a gnawing dehydration that was threatening to take the wind out of me. I probably should have had something to drink 3 hours earlier. The almost 4 hours of sleep that I had gotten the night before was also proving to be a weak foundation for this kind of activity. Once I got to University Ave, I went to Panera Bread and had a meal.

 There I read the Capital Times almost cover-to-cover and got kind of upset that Dardanelles and Ancora on Monroe Street are closing, Ancora due to competition from Trader Joe's and Dardanelles due to health reasons on the part of the owner-- one Barbara Wright, who once told me while reading my tea leaves, "You need to learn that not all emptiness is bad." How profoundly her message hits me now at a time where I'm considering making my life very simple and open. I wonder if this whole walk bullshit was just destiny's scheme to get me to read this article. Nah.

I just have to re-train myself not to live for someone else, in pursuit of someone else, or in constant consideration of someone else. I come from a collectivist society, I love my family with my all of my heart and every time I think of going home, some part of me feels whole again. However, this is not what I need. I don't want to feel whole if in fact I'm not whole; I want to truly, truly discover what matters to me.

I have this problem, where I start falling in love so that I don't have to love myself. I start helping people so I don't have to help myself. I try to figure people out, at the expense of myself.

Really, it's kind of like what a bitchy, critical person would do. Those people judge everyone else and point out their flaws, so they don't have to examine their own problems. Except that I'm not mean about it. I just like to think about other people. I'm just kind of a self-negligent person, which has been okay because there's always someone around looking out for me, and I'm not completely crazy or anything.

Therefore, I gotta put myself in a world where people aren't always taking care of me.

That's why I'm going on this bout of crazy asceticism, or what a more individualistic person might call "being normal." 

And another thing, I need to seek out what I really want in life, and reject what won't get me that.