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a quarter in revue: from band geek to beautiful and back again

3-10-'02: 12:42pm

one of my new year's resolutions was to begin writing down what was happening in my life.

let this diary be a testament as to how well i keep my new year's resolutions.

anyway, backtracking, i began the year with a rather sorry outlook on life...or, a rather good outlook on life. perspective makes all the difference. i wanted a fresh start; a complete departure from "the person i was before." oh, no more would be the pathetic mess of girl who spent her life in southside practice room e. i was looking for a complete personality makeover, you might say.

part of this is due to a rather stressful and controlling trip to california to march in the rosebowl parade. russel seemed to find it a little strange that my favourite part of the trip was actually marching the parade. it was. five miles of no one breaking down and crying in the bathroom, no one fighting, no one rushing us to do things that aren't important in the first place. don't get me wrong...it was a fun trip. there were good times. there was also the being herded around like cattle from point to point with 6 hours to sit down at night...or sleep if you wish. they had to do this...the freshmen would have been out of control if they didn't...but it made me seriously wish i hadn't signed my name on their contract. ultimately, I decided that this was the last band trip i will be going on as a "student" for quite awhile.

so i quit drum corps. but there were more reasons for that move. i got injured slipping on the stairs outside the music building after a classic temperature drop...black ice is called black ice for a reason. and the idea of going to school this summer to help me toward graduation sounded very appealing indeed. but my surroundings the first few weeks of living in my new home certianly didn't help.

picture this: a guy has just been dumped. his attitude? i'm going to do whatever i want. i don't think i can quite describe it in words...kind of a "screw-the-world" attitude. while i never fully adopted this attitude, having to be around it all the time had a profound effect on me. my attraction to this guy doubled the effect. i started to forget about appointments and cancel appointments to hang out with him. part of the appeal of quitting drum corps was that i could hang out with him all summer. i stopped practicing. i was scrambling at the last minute to live my life.

i came up with a great way to describe it: the line was still there, but it was blurry. i still knew what i wanted to do, but i couldn't see how i was going to get there any longer.

i hate that feeling. the feeling like i'm not in control of what i'm doing. it took me a few months to really realize the extent to which i had given up on myself. the turning point came one night of drunkness, in the dark of the back porch. she never would have told me about what they had done together if she hadn't had a few drinks in her, but it all came spilling out under the effects of what she called "the truth serum". friend with benefits. and it changed things. kind of had an effect of catapulting me away from myself to look back in and ask "why? why are you bothering so much?"

the effects only stregnthened as i left town the next weekend to attend a music educator's conference in yakima. another one of the things i'd forgotten completely about, i got my shit together at the last minute and hitched a ride with some of the other music educators-to-be. that weekend of seeing old teachers and future teachers i went to school with, taking notes at seminars, listening to groups play...it reminded me of why i was going to school in the first place. reminded me that "the person i was before" wasn't really that bad of a person...and definitely better than "the person i had become."

"the person i was before": maybe a little geekish, but focused, direct. knew what they wanted and how to get it. helped others before they helped themselves. possibly viewed as a little boring from others, maybe never quite happy but always trying to get there. occasionally a little cocky but always guilty about it in the end. liked what they did. wanted to share it with others.

"the person i had become": partying too much, bending to the influence of others rather like a brittle twig. i'd give, but come pretty close to snapping most of the time. unfocused, living in the short term...purely to satisfy the moment, never thinking much about how it would effect the rest of my life. screwing others over to benefit myself, not really thinking about it until later. "happier" and "more free" than i had ever been, doing "whatever i wanted"...yet i still took long walks, trying to figure it all out, came back and cried myself to sleep. a happy mess of tears with little ambition.

he still hasn't asked me about the change, but he knows it's there. "it seems like every time i'm over, you've got your headphones on and you're ignoring everyone." he seemed almost irritated.

"i'm just trying to get things done," i replied.

my reasoning? memories are cool, but you can't look forward to them at all.

"from my house to the music building and back, repeat, repeat," i said last night, describing to a talented music educator the sweet monotony of my life as of late.

"sounds like me in college." i don't think he could have said anything better at that point.

it's good to be back.

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