This will either be verbal diarrhea or a semi-meaningful stream of consciousness. I've been home for a week.
Sometimes it's rough here, because I
don't really have any friends here yet. Essentially, I've been away
from my hometown for 5 years (college and Ecuador) so I have to kind
of resettle and establish my life again. My younger sister (always at
work) doesn't really talk to me...I don't know why.
I am doing the job hunt. It's a job in
itself. I'm looking for either an ESL-teaching job or a writing job.
It's extremely difficult and frustrating, but I try to keep a sunny
outlook. It's been a little over a week since I've been home and
these things take time. Still, I don't want to be that 23-year-old
bumming it at home. So I clean the house a lot.
I also ride my bike a lot. It's
wonderful biking through Center City. I go up and down the Parkway
and LOVE Park and all the craziness and culture of the city. Can't
wait to hit up the art museum as well. I also found a church here I
really like; I signed up for a sort of church community day in which
we all share our skills. I'm thinking of giving a mini Spanish
lesson! I also joined a book club and writing circle at my local
library. I hope through that to meet some people my age and hopefully
some friendships. Plus I love books. And writing.
I have started doing some little
sketches, which is good. I need to get back into that. It makes me
feel good to produce something. I'm exploring with a kind of '60s
look right now-flat planes of color and simple forms. I guess sort of
similar to what your parents' wallpaper looked like in the 1960s...?
I'm still having stomach issues
(although not as bad as my gross sickness my last week in Cuenca); I
don't know what's up, but it's uber-annoying. I have a stomach ache
almost every day. I don't have a doctor's appointment for another 3
weeks...
I am enjoying the weather. It gets
dark around 9:00pm, and it's very hot here. The humidity is starting
to kick in. But my arms and legs are finally exposed to some sun! I
love watching the sunsets at around 8:30-8:45 at night...so
beautiful. And I finally got my delicious Indian and Vietnamese food.
I haven't spoken with my Ecuadorian
neighbors yet. They're often out and about, but I think their young
daughter had another baby...
Sometimes I feel as if I'm the only
person with a brain around here, but I remind myself not to get
frustrated with where I live. It's a bad neighborhood, but there are
bright spots if you keep an open mind. People still play baseball in
the field across the street and my neighbors are nice, even if they
are rowdy. They respect my father, which is important to me because
he does a lot of good for our neighborhood. Yesterday, there were 6
cop cars in front of the house across the street; I'm pretty sure the
people who live there are selling drugs on the sly (my neighborhood
has a serious problem with drugs, but thankfully, not guns.)
I'm looking forward to a trip to the
shore in late July. We go to Wildwood. It's tacky and fabulous. More
on that in a future post.
I spoke with one of my best friends,
who told me that 2 people we graduated with are getting married in
August. That still kind of blows my mind...I'm getting older, but
have I finally reached that age where my peers get married??? WEIRD.
I see my twenties as a time of...just floating. My other best friend
and I talked about that the other day. While I have to say this the
most to myself, I believe that this decade of my life is meant to be
about learning, exploring, discovering, and most importantly, messing
up. Even though there are plenty of times when I'm so frustrated with
myself for not knowing WHAT I WANT TO DO, I need to remember that
that's okay. How many people knew what they were going to dedicate
themselves to at 23-years-old? Probably not that many. Most people
move through jobs, work their way up and through life and everything
that comes with it. Sometimes it seems as if every day I wake up with
a new mindset. Is it true that as long as you're moving and doing
something, you're progressing? Just don't remain idle, just being. An
art professor in college once asked us if we were human beings or
human doings. I'll let that juicy nugget marinate in your mind for a
while...mostly because I need to wrap my head around it myself.
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