My advice to first years is usually someone else’s. The early months are tough and hey, I’ve been there. You’ll find friends. Give yourself space, give it time. And try something new. And don’t worry. Really, seriously, don’t worry.
I do this odd thing where I say stuff that I haven’t totally understood in my brain. It gets me into lots of funny situations, gets me saying lots of mindless things. Sometimes these things are stupid, sometimes they matter, sometimes they’re both.
One of the most important times it was both happened in October 2018, in the first semester of my first year. I’d recently concluded that nearly everything around me was unfulfilling. For some reason I dug out a notebook I’d bought for “budgeting purposes” (a comical purchase, in retrospect) and on October 16, 2018 spit out the ramble below. I don’t remember much about it, but after writing it, I felt more awake than I had in a long time.
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723pm on a 726pm flight, OCT 16, 2018
I just dropped my pen cap down the armrest divider, I think it’s gone forever. Confirmed—gone. It’s an empty flight.
FEELING LIKE I NEED A LIFE ADJUSTMENT. FEELING PRETTY POOR ABOUT MY STATE AS A PERSON. SOUNDS DEEPER THAN IT IS.
I’ve been thinking about doing a project for self improvement. I think I could get into it if I made it fun. That one night Claire called because “school is real tough”—remembering that text I sent to her after: “if you be your own friend it’s hard to get lonely” MAYBE I should listen to myself
Building a friendship with myself: some kind of recognition, get some things to hang on to.
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That bit about being your own friend—that’s the only real piece of advice I think I’ve ever given, about being a first year or being in college or being generally uncomfortable. It sounds like it belongs in a middle school classroom but I absolutely stand by it. It’s also funny because I had no authority on how to get through a first semester anywhere; I was equally confused and overwhelmed. But after I said it, I thought a lot about it and it turned out to be the best advice I’ve ever received. From myself. Which (don’t get me wrong) is weird.
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OCT 22, 2018
So! Been a week since I did this. One thing I self-reflected (?is this a verb?) about was my incredible inability to follow through on plans/goals. If I recognize that a major weakness of mine is lack of perseverance, THIS IS SOMETHING THAT SHOULD CARRY. WE CAN BUILD OFF THIS. Basically, I’m sick and tired of being governed by this feeling part of me, I’m tired of going through every single day and getting to the end and realizing it had no impact. I don’t even understand how this is a thing that can occur—experience of the day, both physical and non-physical—just does not impact me but it’s happening! I’m doing it!
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(For the record, I still need to hear this—still not a perseverance person, still prone to auto-pilot days.)
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OCT 22, 2018 (cont’d)
Right now I’m in the side library that has windows facing the Sterling courtyard, in one of those little rooms. I’ve had way too much coffee and I just realized I put my sweater on backwards.
The method I usually take in regard to self improvement/self image is to imagine someone meeting me and then how they are impacted—thinking I’m interesting or strange or nice etc.—not sure if this is helpful or vain. Maybe it’s encouraging the idea that my value is only real when recognized by another, which is dumb if I understand what the word “recognize” means: acknowledgment! not creation!
I’m just wearing this backwards all day. It’s the sweater Sabina saw and laughed because she thought it was an ugly Christmas sweater so I think it’s fine.
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The same week, I went out for pizza and in the middle of dinner gave this bizarre description of how I think I interact with myself—I’ve got this image in my head where I’m shaking myself by the shoulders, continuously just “HEY! HEY! HEY!” and getting no movement, no response, nothing.
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NOV 2, 2018
NEED SOME ORIGINALITY! Need some different things to say. Often I don’t know how I end up in situations. Like this meeting—there was an earlier meeting, an email, and email replies that were all premeditated, that I did to get here. They just don’t feel like things that I did.
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NOV 4, 2018
Some phrases! That are nice! :
“QUAKING AWE”
“mistaking clouds for mountains” // “the thing that brings sparrows to the fountains” - Danse Caribe, Andrew Bird
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NOV 6, 2018
3 things to be worrying about instead of GPA:
1 Is this my best effort? Am I challenging myself? Am I taking advantage of the resources here?
2 Am I engaging the material? Am I interested? Am I thinking?
3 Am I improving? Am I responding to the feedback being given? SOME FORM OF GROWTH?
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NOV 7, 2018
alien dust (another nice phrase)
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NOV 11, 2018
I think I need to stop looking for fulfillment in other people. I went to the Yale Art Gallery today. For some reason I always feel slightly panicked in art museums, not sure if it comes from fear of missing something or fear of not understanding the art in front of me…
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DEC 4, 2018
These last months I’ve felt more of who I am as a person than in awhile. In years actually. I’m uncomfortable and I don’t know things, I’m stressed, I’m more aware of myself than I’ve ever been, I’m writing more than I ever have and maybe that’s why I’m here. Needed a realignment, a few slaps in the face //
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I think this is the first time I acknowledged to myself that me being more aware and me writing more were connected, that they happened in parallel, and that maybe I could use this weird transition time for something other than just feeling weird. Not to say the writing was fixing everything or making the discomfort go away, but it allowed me to take advantage of an opportunity, to learn about my intuitions and quirks, to poke myself a bit.
And the writing still does this. I’m not sure why I wrote all of that in past tense because I still feel weird lots of the time. I say stuff and people laugh even though I’m not joking. I try to open doors the wrong way. There are nights where I have to lay on my floor and remember that at least my mother is rooting for me. I write a ton because it doesn’t matter what I’m doing—I lose track of myself all the time, in all of it.
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DEC 4, 2018 (but much later in the day)
// This woman has a huge orange ring on her pointer finger, not sure how to feel
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DEC 6, 2018
Bought popcorn and M&Ms, dumped them in the same bag. The man at the counter was shaking his head as I mixed them but it was okay because I didn’t get it either. I haven’t had that snack since middle school and I didn’t even like it in middle school.
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DEC 20, 2018
The last macaron in the box and Lilly tells me “No you can’t eat her! She’s got friends and a family, and a dance recital on Tuesday” and I’m laughing - “Are you talking about the macaron?”
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Sometime in JAN 2019
I sit myself down and how long has it been since you’ve been in a forest? (a big one, with moss trees?)
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FEB 19, 2019
The table next to me at Jojo’s: “I want my child to be third best at something. Third best at skiing. Third best at piano. ‘Not first?’ Nope. Being first best at piano? That’ll fuck with them.”
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This is still my favorite conversation I’ve overheard in a coffee shop and I worked at one for two years.
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FEB 22, 2019
No one understands sometimes? How really I think or really want to live and that is a lonely feeling let me tell you that is a lonely lonely place among some of the most interesting and driven people some of the most intelligent minds, I’m at a loss, things/actions/relationships feel empty feel sad….
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I really like this one because I’m pretty sure everything everything I write is (essentially) an exercise of me getting to know myself, of me surprising myself. Here I am on February 22, 2019 complaining that no one understands me meanwhile I don’t even understand me—enjoy!
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MAR 14, 2019
Drive home tonight: the temperature is switching between 33º F and 32º F and it hasn’t stopped raining since the sun rose and the air is starting to freeze and the street lights are reflecting off the wet pavement and I really can’t tell: black ice or puddles? But it doesn’t matter apparently because there I am barreling down the dimly lit highway, there I am and there the road is and the water in some form and the car at 60mph—do I pray? is that a prayer kind of moment because it doesn’t FEEL like a prayer it feels like a movie I’m watching in my basement at eight years old—I could think it that I might slide but I don’t feel anything the only thing I feel is the canker sore that’s forming in my mouth from the three sour jolly ranchers I’ve eaten today and I don’t know if three is a lot but I do know the strawberry one tasted like chemical so if I could go back I’d only have two.
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MAR 19, 2019
Realized when I picture myself, I always have my hands in my pockets.
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Mid-second semester I switched to an unlined notebook, so trains of thought were no longer linear, just lots of undated updates: recently I’ve been pouring myself into my walls and in two days I’ve made 10 bracelets funny how I concentrate energy like that and been a nature valley granola bar recently, fucking embarrassing and drawing flowers a lot lately, daisy looking things. No less legitimate, just a little more scattered.
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OCT 17, 2019
Absolutely tearing through fruit snack packets right now. There’s a 3,000 word document on my computer of various journal snippets I pulled for this LAYER article. I’ve been typing into it for the past two hours, trying to convert all of these into some sort of whole thing. They’re all in one book? I wrote them all down? They’re my thoughts and words and I’m the organizer so this should be easy why is it not easy..
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I described my journal once as “grounding my experiences in myself as opposed to in other people.” I’ve decided I’m going to stick with that (that’s the whole thing), mostly because I haven’t found a better way to say it.
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JUNE 2019
…being your own friend is like a homemade pickle recipe, it can always be improved…
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I’ve never actually made homemade pickles. Even if I had, I’m not sure it would make total sense. But I’m committed to the analogy all the same, because I think it’s quirky and funny and a little stupid. Lots of things that came out of last year were like that—quirky, funny, stupid—good things to hang on to.
By Hailey Carter.
