Yes. All of my optimism has always been that boys will finally like me.
No, I'm just kidding. My optimism is about all sorts of things:
- This year I'll get good grades and be highly engaged in all of my classes.
- This year I'll make loads of new friends.
- This year I'll finally get someone other than Renee to watch my video blog!
- This year I'll stop craving chocolate and start craving kale and water or whatever it is that makes people skinny. (Jokes on you, I already crave water. Water and chocolate.)
- This year my cat will finally start liking me.
- This year my depression and anxiety will all just fall away and I'll be happy all year long.
- This year I'll find a group in which I really feel I "belong."
- This year I'll finally get invited to those magical-unicorn-rare-mystical-college parties that I've dreamt up: you know, the ones where everyone wears costumes, dances, mingles and plays games without getting drunk.
- This year God will transform me, faith and devotion will be easy, and everyone who meets me will just see God's love radiating out of me.
- This year I will be kinder, more patient, more forgiving, happier, and calmer.
- This year, this year, this year is gonna be different.
But this year is already different. And no, sadly I don't mean that boys have already started liking me. What I mean is: this year I'm not feeling so optimistic.
"How can you even begin on the right foot if you aren't your typical levels of naive optimism, Kat?"
For one thing, you move your right foot first. But, for all intents and purposes I started the year on a good foot. I went for a walk this morning, I ate a healthy breakfast, I left for school at an appropriate time. I somehow managed to find a parking spot! I went to both of my classes, was pleasant, attentive, and, most importantly, I participated when appropriate. So the good foot is all in there.
But I'm feeling very, unfortunately, pessimistic about the semester, socially. Academically? Most of my classes seem like they will be interesting, and I'm pretty psyched to be taking a couple of them. I'll get to have two out of my four favorite professors, which is fabulous. So academically I'm stoked. Socially, I'm all shades of anxious.
This anxiety extends to a couple of different places. To begin with, last semester one of my very best friends and the person I was closest to on campus graduated. And if that's not enough to put me in a depressive slump, she also had to move back home. To Australia. (Her beautiful, wonderful, best-friend-stealing homeland.) I'm pretty introverted, so it's challenging for me to make friends in the first place. Most of my friends come from a group that was formed our freshman year, one that I happened upon through luck and only a little determination.
"Oh, you have a friend group! Why are you even worried then, Kat?"
Here's why I'm worried: last semester I caught "the bitch." By which I mean, a series of unfortunate events caused me a great deal of sadness, anxiety, loneliness, frustration, and annoyance, and as a result I wasn't very nice. I thought about this a lot today. See, I didn't really know anyone in any of my classes, which is lonely enough, but I also didn't happen upon any of my friends--it's a small campus, usually you can happen upon just about everyone. Some of my friends I haven't seen or really spoken to since last semester ended, and I was really hoping to see them to just to see if things were still "cool" between us.
Before you get all, "Well you shouldn't be mean to your friends and then expect them to still like you" let me clarify something here: I wasn't the only mean one. The series of unfortunate events I mentioned? I'm still very hurt about a lot of that. And part of me is worried that some of my friends won't be able to forgive me, and I won't be able to forgive the other ones.
But mostly I'm worried that it won't matter whether or not my friends still like me, or whether or not I can get past what some of them did that hurt me: I'm worried that I won't even get to see them. I live off campus now, and I'm pretty worried that I'll miss out on all the late-night-Applebees-runs, all of the mass TV viewings, and even all of the times everyone gets together but does their own thing while hanging out in the same room. And I'm worried that missing out on trips to Walmart and midnight viewings of movies will change our friendships even more.
Look, I spent almost my entire high school career on the outside. And I'm not optimistic that this year won't parallel all of that pain.
Then again, who knows!? MAYBE THIS IS THE YEAR BOYS FINALLY LIKE ME.
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