Sunday, September 23, 2012

Stuck Between Here and There


When I found myself on the Google Latitude page, it blatantly informed me that “the location of Dani Titus is not shared.” And why is that? Besides my Google account settings, I think my physiological location isn’t quite being advertised completely either. As much as I want to convince people – along with myself – that I’m all gung-ho about packing up my life and trucking towards college, secretly I’ve got that bit of dread. It’s not that I’m scared about living on my own and having my life figured out because I’ve pretty much got that under control. It’s just that I’m worried I’ll lose all that I have here – especially how close I am to my best friend. I’ve never had a friendship as close as ours and I honestly don’t think too many people do in their lifetime. That’s probably the biggest reason I go back and forth about college.
My mental conversation can’t seem to stay on one side of the argument. Randomly throughout the day, I’ll say to myself, “Man, I can’t wait until next year when I can get to USD and get my life going already.” But then it changes to “I’ll miss my friends, family, and everything familiar. And my puppy, Millie! How am I going to be able to study without her curled up next to me on my bed?” The little voice inside my head is on track to becoming bipolar. Pick a side already!
Almost every day, I find myself anticipating the moment when the days will start flying by like all of last year’s seniors told me they would. I’m already bored with the monotony of senior year:  I press my snooze button one too many times in the morning, throw myself together, and truck out the door with my backpack, purse, gym bag, and softball equipment weighing me down. Once at school, each ring of the bell feels like another lap down on the race towards the end of the day. Practice drags on and I speed to my next obligation as soon as it’s over. After that is homework followed by a little bit of Twitter and then I’m off to sleep. Repeat that five times and you’ve got my weeks nailed. Hard to believe it, but that’s not exactly my ideal schedule. I find myself wishing this year would hurry up and end so I could get my life started.  Maybe other seniors don’t exactly get that feeling, but I think a lot of the reason I do is because I know exactly what I want to do with my life. I’m ready to get to the University of South Dakota and get my Occupational Therapy degree. I’m excited to start helping children with disabilities and utilize the passion I have for those people. Starting last January, I shadowed the Occupational Therapists in the hospital every day until May. I think it’s safe to say that I’ve gotten a good look at what that profession holds for me. I just want to jump in already!
Then I’m back to the friendship dilemma. I’ve come to the realization this year that having one really close friend is better than having multiple “half-best friends.” Don’t get me wrong, I think I have a good range of friends but I’m definitely not as close to a lot of them as I have been in previous years. Contrary to that though, I’ve gotten extremely close to that one. It’s like that saying, “I’d rather have one dollar bill than four quarters.” That girl and I do basically everything together. Have a free hour or two? Call her. Don’t want to sit there alone while doing your homework? Call her. Need to drive around and cry your heart out to someone? Call her. She’s that person I can turn to no matter what. The problem isn’t that I don’t think I’ll make friends in college – I’m sure I will. It’s just that losing that closeness because of the distance of college would kill me. How weird it would feel if I came home from college and I couldn’t just say whatever I wanted in front of her! We talk about anything and everything. If there ever came a time when we didn’t, who would I tell anything to?
On every single softball bus ride, I can be found in the very back seat jamming with Meg. The other night, one of the first songs that came up on my iPod was “American Honey” by Lady Antebellum. Have you ever listened to a song a million times and the 1,000,001st time you listen to it, a line hits you like a ton of bricks? That was me last night: “Couldn’t wait to get going, but wasn’t quite ready to leave.” My heart sank. There I was singing my heart out with my best friend, which is something we do a lot, and my whole mental state for the last month was verbalized out of nowhere. I’d never thought about it like that but, honestly, I never couldn’t phrased it better myself. Where am I mentally? Stuck in the middle of wishing for a fast forward button and wanting to hold on to every single moment.  

2 comments:

  1. Man! I totally understand what you mean!! I'm so ready to get out of small town Aurora and be on my own. Yet, I am really going to miss my friends and family!

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  2. Dani,

    Well, I am sitting at my laptop with tears in my eyes. You are such a fantastic writer and you SO conveyed the emotions I saw in Anna last year--especially the idea of having one close friend--after it is all said and done. And really, that is what life is like. I consider myself lucky that I have three Horatios in my life (he is Hamlet's best and closest friend--ask someone in English IV to explain). Your final paragraph elicited the tears. So well written. Brava!! Kudos!

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