Ten Year Reflection: Part 1

Excerpt from July 13, 1997:

Best friends...what constitutes a best friend? It used to be a group of people to each lunch with, laugh with, be ourselves with. Then something happened...what was it? A selfish inconsiderate act? Immaturity? College?

Were we really ourselves? Or did we pretend to be something, want something that we never could be or have? I have watched friends change since freshman year. Even the way people were junior year was not who they were senior year and not who they are now. Actually, I don't know who anybody is right now. All I know is that I don't like very many people.

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I wrote that at the shore the summer after my freshman year of college. Everything and everybody (including me) had changed and was continuing to change and I was lost somewhere in the middle of it all. I was drifting away from high school pals but those bonds of friendship hadn't yet matured with my college girlfriends yet so I felt alone. It was July and I had one more month before school began and I had that bittersweet feeling that comes when you realize it's time to move on, move forward, but in doing so, essentially must leave people, places, things behind you. I was excited to go back to school, to focus on my now familiar college environment and embrace that life, but I was sad at the challenge before me - to let go of the past and stuff I had hoped to fix or change or be what I wanted, but over which I had no control, so therefore, had to accept (and/or supress) and get on with my 19 year old life.

My next entry doesn't come until November 1997 but in the months leading up to it - I worked at the Gap that fall in Springfield and at the Deck the Walls in Granite Run, immersed myself in my Photography class, in visiting Linvilla (pre barn fire), listened to the Smiths, went to a few parties at B3, had my hair chopped to a shaggy pixie, still embraced alternative 90s girl style (thrift store cords, shirts, velvet blazers, vintage Puma sneaks or Docs) and tried my damndest to look like the cute Winona Ryder indie chick I wanted to portray for the cute boys (there were 2) I so adored at the time.