Choose your own flashback.

Here is the story:

In theory, the past two weeks have involved two of exactly the same thing, but in reality, the events could not have been more different. Both were called “homecoming,” but one was for my high school, and the other was for my college. (Yes! Colleges do indeed have homecoming. Fear not; I myself also have to be reminded of that every year, and am fairly certain I only wrote this parenthetical addendum for my own sake. You were probably already completely aware. If you read the past few sentences in a British accent, you will get to exactly where I am mentally right now. Maybe don't.) In that sense, they were polar opposites. But technically they both were football games attended by people with similar educational backgrounds who paid in small bills for snacks out of tiny buildings.

Perhaps it is only in my mind that they are significantly different, but allow me to proceed.

I despised high school, with a profuse loathing that probably was born out of severe emotional instability and what I did not realize was the need for some level of privacy. It was a small private school, but if you had even the most minor of issues, let me tell you, it was anything but small or private. In that phase of my life, I also found a lot of my worth in things I should not have (appearances, accomplishments, grades, boys...mostly boys. Mostly I cried a lot and was confused as to why everyone else had a boyfriend and I didn’t. Things to consider: probably because I cried a lot.)

Anyway. My senior year I was on homecoming court (I realize that my description of myself does not support such a statement, but the clincher was probably that I also tried very hard to be nice to everyone, which is almost all you can do for the world when you’re seventeen) and I actually think it may have been one of the top ten best days of my life. I feel as if I should be ashamed but that is the honest truth. I wore a sparkly blue dress that my college friends would be embarrassed to have been in the same store as and I got my hair done (!?) (it was also a waste of money), and when my friend won queen we went back to her van and ate Jack in the Box fries with the boys who escorted us. And honestly, I only threw that factoid in there because if you knew me as I am right now you would know I am the farthest thing from a homecoming princess, and am very nerdy and so, so painfully introverted (probably too much emotional scarring from high school, honestly), have recently decided Augustine’s Confessions is one of my absolute favorite books, and am spending Saturday night BLOGGING ON MY COUCH AND EATING MUESLI CEREAL WITH MY HANDS BECAUSE I DON’T WANT TO STUDY VIRUS REPLICATION. Whatever. Now you know.

I went back to high school homecoming freshman year of college, and by the end of that school year, when I realized most of my relationships with those people were slowly turning into awkward waves when I saw them at the mall, I vowed never to go back.

This became difficult when my big little brother became a football star. It runs in our family (my dad’s side) to be good at things but to be best known for ridiculous commentary thrown in on the side. But big little brother made it work for him. He played wide receiver (that also runs on my dad’s side), and he caught a plethora of touchdown passes, and then I had to go to watch him catch them, which did not do a lot for my aura of aloofness, but promised to be temporary. Unfortunately, as big little brother ended his final high school season, baby little brother also discovered his talent for catching touchdown passes, which is why I find myself, far more often than I would hope, sitting in some corner of my high school feeling nauseous and angry and mildly supportive of my siblings’ athletic efforts, all at once, even though none of them ever showed any enthusiasm at my choir concerts.

And now big little brother plays for my college, so basically I am eternally tied to my past. I guess it comes with being a trailblazer. Fortunately, college homecomings aren’t nearly as bad. Our marching band wears weird hats, but that’s really the only issue. This year my past roommate Camille was on homecoming court so I attended to support her and my brother standing on the sidelines for their respective purposes.

And thus we come to the meat of the matter. The mention of college homecoming was just to give me a good reason to write this late, and the entire intro was to release some of the bitterness that is rooted in my past (common theme) as well as to prove that I had a very good excuse for attending my high school’s homecoming THREE YEARS after I graduated (talented relatives, familial obligations, etc.). The post I wanted to write last week was “Things you find yourself thinking at your high school homecoming,” and I think that the inspirational ideas are probably still somewhere back there, so…

Things you find yourself thinking (and in moments of indiscretion, speaking) at your high school's homecoming:

(for reference, picture a very nervous squirrel reacting strongly to every possible stimulant, but only expressing it facially. This is what the evening most likely resembled.)

"Why am I here?"

"No, but really, why? I am literally the only person here from my class who is not coaching something."

"Why am I doing this to myself?"

"I came here to see my freaking brother and my brother came to seem my freaking brother but of course, neither of them are even talking to me. He can't even play. He has a concussion. He is sitting on the sidelines ignoring me. Obviously I'm more important than your lame friends who probably only ever talk about lame things...like...Halo...!"

"Do people play Halo anymore?"

"AM I OBSOLETE?"

"HAVE I ALREADY PEAKED?"

"I HAVE ALREADY PEAKED."

"Okay slow down. Half the things that half these kids spend all their energy on I can do legally and they can't. Plus look at them. They're all so tiny. All of them are either continuing or ending their awkward stage, and almost none of them know what to do with their arms."

"Do I know what to do with my arms?"

"Has it only been ten minutes?"

"REMEMBER THAT GUY? WHY IS HE HERE? REMEMBER HOW OLD HE WAS WHEN I WAS SO YOUNG? HE WAS IN THAT PLAY. I NEVER TALKED TO HIM. HE'S PROBABLY FORTY AND HE STILL COMES I CAN'T BE THAT BAD."

"If he was a senior when I was a freshman..."

"(math)"

"He is twenty-four. Or twenty-five. He is in his twenties."

"WE ARE EQUALS."

"Oh my GOSH, how long does it take a mother to buy snacks?"

"Why am I here?"

"I went here?"

"I went to this school."

"No wonder I have so many problems."

"Remember how fun these things used to be? Remember how grown up we felt? Is that really how old we are? This is embarrassing. We were four feet tall. Who did we even think we were?"

"Am I the only person here who didn't bring a date?"

"Who brings a date to their high school homecoming? What would you say? 'Yeah I went here for four years, did a lot of algebra, felt bad about myself, casual.'"

"Is this what reunions will be like?"

"How do reunions even happen?"

"IS THAT MY RESPONSIBILITY"

(I was senior class president (no one else ran), so it is, in fact, my responsibility. I remember this every few months and experience this series of emotions every time.)

"NO"

"I CAN'T FACE THEM LIKE THIS"

"I USED TO BE SO MUCH BETTER"

"I HAVE TO MOVE"

"Move? Hm. That thought was extreme."

"Maybe I could just face the fact that everyone values different things, and that I like myself better now, and that I decided I valued genuine relationships and formative life experiences instead of appearing cool."

"Maybe I could go to grad school and then make everyone call me 'Dr. Lydia'."

"Hm."

"...'Doctor Lydia'..."

"Ugh Mom finally."

"Ugh NO WAIT MOM DON'T TALK TO THEM THEY'LL KNOW I CAME."

"Ugh why is this the worst thing I've ever done."

"Ew, why am I sixteen again. Pull it together, self. You are an adult. You paint your own nails and you pay for things with money you do not have. You are better than this."

"Ugh MOM classic Mom making a million friends and taking forever."

"Hey, that guy! I knew him. Nope, I did not know him. Just went to a tiny high school where you knew everybody and pretended you didn't. Too much."

"Oh, I kind of knew her."

"I should hide."

"Okay, really, I went here?"

"This is ridiculous."

"This homecoming court. So clean-cut. So youthful."

"I don't even go here and I know who's going to win homecoming queen."

"Yep."

"At least the game is interesting."

"See, high school football is so much better than any other kind of football, because everything that happens is more of a surprise. All the other levels are so well-oiled and pristine. An NFL team getting to the Superbowl is just as exciting as one of our receivers actually catching the ball."

"Why am I here?"

"UGH finally over."

"UGH have to sing the song. Have to salute the school. Have to be the only lame person from my class who went to homecoming three years later because everyone else is thriving and successful and turned super hot and I still do things for my little brothers."

"Granted, they are superior little brothers."

"Okay, this song is ridiculous, and no one is singing it. This is so embarrassing."

"I am experiencing a very intense form of sympathetic embarrassment and would like this to stop."

"MY FIRST STRENGTH IS EMPATHY MAKE IT STOP."

"IT'S OVER."

"The game is over."

"That wasn't even that bad."

"I did something brave!"

"I AM BRAVE!"

"UGH Mom's gone. She left me."

"Probably never coming back. Probably forgot I existed. Like everyone else from high school having a vibrant, full life unlike me, just moping around college and making it sound like I did something funny in my stupid blog."

"I should probably blog about this."

"Too bad Mom left and I'm going to die here."

fin.

Some bitterness leaks forth.

GREETINGS.

Today is not bad. I have had, overall, a fairly pleasant week, in case you were concerned about my well-being. Some people feel that way after reading things I present on the internet. A lot of good things have happened this week (I painted, I Skyped friends, I learned), and I would say, in one quick snapshot, the vibe of the week was definitely more to the positive side than the negative.
I do, however, have some pressure to release, so it's not going to sound like that.

FIRST OF ALL.
I just want everyone to know that I am very happy at my university of choice, and I would recommend it to anyone who was sincerely interested. (Although I am deeply in debt, so that is something to consider; the jury is still out on whether eternal poverty is going to be worth it.) I'm also sure everyone is aware that no matter where you go, you're going to end up getting screwed over in at least one sense. Not everything is going to work out for you. It's all part of growing up, apparently.

At my school, I study primarily under the Department of Biology & Chemistry (that is a pretty sick ampersand, I must admit), probably because my major is biology. Under that department, there are a great many hugely intelligent and extremely (borderline obsessively) driven people. They are great, mostly. They are also 90% pre-med. Which is fine. I was pre-med at one point. I just like to pretend I am better than everyone else (spoiler: my persistent vanity will be a theme of this post) because I changed my mind. I just think being a doctor would clash with my aura. Plus people's guts really only interest me in theory. Actual interaction with them would be a nightmare and a half. It's the difference between, "Hey, did you know your body could do that? What a cool thought! We are so interesting," versus, "Whoa, check out this lung I am slicing into! This dead person's liver feels so grainy! I will squash it about instead of honoring their passing! People are the sum of their parts! I am abnormally attracted to bloody wads of flesh!"

Sorry. That's not what it actually means. I have also heard some of the motivation of aspiring doctors stems from one day helping people recover from disease. Or being obscenely wealthy and overly esteemed.
That part at least is understandable.

So I did this cool thing where I changed my "emphasis" (still not sure what that means) to Ecology, which is the study of nature and its workings, essentially, and will lead to a life of professional hippie-dom, hopefully. Do you ever hear people say things like "those crazy environmentalists" when they need a scapegoat for an inconvenience, like a washing machine that uses minimal water and therefore provides untrustworthy cleaning abilities? If it all works out, someday they'll be referring to future Lydia.
Yay.

But genuinely, being one of the minimal percentage that is not interested in human or medical or molecular science, sometimes I feel a little alone in my pursuits. Especially on those days when you're feeling a little nervous about the future and everyone else in the research lab is like, "Sorry, I'm too busy wanting to be a doctor to validate you."  Granted, my outdoorsy interests helped me to do cool things like study in Michigan at an environmental institute this summer, which was super fun and exciting, which you never would have guessed because my posts were so dang angsty (dangsty), BUT what good are those experiences when no one else wants to be jealous of them?
I'M KIDDING. A little bit.

The reason I dig up all this deep-set frustration is because this summer my little environment-loving heart found itself entwined around a plant biology class and I allowed myself to become very excited about it and very interested in it WHICH APPARENTLY YOU SHOULD NEVER DO BECAUSE THE WORLD ONLY WANTS TO HURT YOU and then one day I got an email that said, "Not enough people were weird enough to want to be interested in vegetative life, so we cancelled the class. Happy trails!" and I just said, "Oh whatever, I get it! It's cool! Super casual, who needs plants, not like they produce oxygen or nutritional sustenance or anything!" but inside I fell to the ground dramatically and whimpered.
The only other class options were neurobiology (neuro = brain = people guts = no), vertebrate biology (vertebrates = sometimes people = cadaver dissections = DEAD PERSON = CHOPPING UP A DEAD PERSON = @#?&%$ NO) and virology (viruses = not people and/or guts = well alright). Because while I don't want to spend the rest of my life as a pasty lab worker who never sees the sun and never actually can physically see the individual organisms participating in my lab work without expensive machines assisting my vision, the biology of tiny things is interesting. So I took virology.
And I am learning plenty.
PLENTY.
For example.

Did you know that if you get herpes in your nose (do not ASK me how that happens; to that factoid I remain blissfully oblivious) it can go to your brain? And kill you?

Also, did you know bunnies can get a virus that causes them to grow long, tentacle-like tumors that spout forth from their body at random places, and according to my professor, "Usually the tumors are benign, so it's not that bad," to which I respond, "Nope not disturbed at all! Thanks for the knowledge!" but if you think about it, DO YOU THINK THOSE RABBITS WILL EVER FIND LOVE? DO YOU THINK THEY WILL EVER BE ACCEPTED BY THEIR FAMILIES? DO YOU THINK THEY ARE SATISFIED WITH HOW THEIR LIVES HAVE TURNED OUT?

And finally, did you know that when mad cow disease was entering its season as an epidemic, no one understood its transmission, and one bad cow would ruin the whole batch (so to speak) so the farmers just had to set all their cows on fire? And then they probably all committed suicide because they lost all of their well-being? Also the reason the cows got this disease is because they were being fed the bone marrow of diseased sheep, even though cows are and always have been supposed to eat grass? Also some insensitive soul thought it would useful to take pictures?

That last little niblet of knowledge is what I learned on Friday, and so I showed up to my last class of the day practically in tears; my roommate (Sarah) fanned me with her class outline and I said, "I WAS SUPPOSED TO BE LEARNING ABOUT LEAVES TURNING SUNSHINE INTO FOOD," and, "THEY FED THE COWS SHEEP," and, "I JUST WANTED TO LEARN ABOUT FLOWERS," and she was very nice to me and nodded a lot sympathetically, but...I feel as if I was a little further over the edge than I needed to be.
That, in far too many far too dramatic words, was the darkest stain on my week.

As I said, it wasn't too bad overall (believable), but I also wanted to complain about one other thing (honest): this morning, I woke up to a text from the mother of the high schooler I tutor in biology that said they found a new tutor for her who could meet them at their house. Which is understandable and fine, however abrupt and unexpected, and considering that driving to a location nearer to me was difficult for the girl, I don't mind. So I sent them a very gracious text concerning the change of plans, that read, more or less, 

"You're great! Thanks for your time! Best of luck in all your pursuits! Happy you found something that works for you! I am cool and collected!"

but probably should have read,

"OMG totes no worries! Thanks for all the good times! Like when I could never drive to you because I don't have a car because it's at home being repaired from the accident I got into on my way to meet your offspring at Starbs for a session she cancelled half an hour before! Probs so inconvenient for you. I wish I had feelings and could understand."

Whatever.
Obviously people can do whatever they want. They, then, can do what they want with the new tutor (who was unwise to meet them at their house, I mean they happen to be safe people, but to promise that to someone you've never met? I have already almost been scammed by someone named Vlaar/Vlaad/still not sure, that was the first red flag, and...I mean, stranger danger), and I can do what I want and be bitter in a controlled environment without any direct impact or vindication.
I was going to write this post about something completely different, but I honestly have said so much that probably would be going overboard. Maybe next time.

MUCH UPLIFTING VERY LAUGHTER WOW

fin.