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How Things Have Changed
Posted by D
on
12:33 AM
I've spent a lot of time recently thinking about how my perceptions of the world have changed in the last few years. Some of the best advice I've heard since I started college is to realize that the person you are now is likely to be fairly different from the person you will be in a few years. Your hobbies will change. Your friends will change. What you like to eat and drink will change. Experiences and challenges faced over a short period of time can have a significant impact on how you perceive the world and how you perceive yourself.
I remember thinking that coffee and beer were disgusting, TV was the greatest thing ever, and how the Yankees winning or losing dictate my mood until they played again. I used to think anybody who did any kind of drug was a bad person. I thought snow was a blast, oatmeal looked stupid, and poop was a funny word (I still think poop is funny).
5 years ago, I thought I had everything figured out. I knew what I liked, and I knew what I didn't. I loved sports and cherry pie and hated gefilte fish and reading. Now I love sports and reading, think cherry pie is much too sweet, and still hate gefilte fish. I knew what I was really bad at. I was much better at writing than I was at math and was too shy to speak in public. Now speaking may be my best skill, my writing has gotten me into grad school, and I'm currently in math camp for algebra and calculus.
I wouldn't say that I am proud of the person who I was. I can't even say I liked the person I was. I'd be embarrassed for the people I've met in the last few years to know what I was like before college. It would be a person they didn't recognize. I am grateful to the people who did know me then that they don't hold it against me. They knew me when I wore glasses (3rd grade to 12th grade), refused to wear jeans, and stuttered. They knew me when I wore Yankees shirts everyday, took ultimate frisbee wayyyyyy too seriously, and directed a really dumb TV show.
The best part of reminiscing is letting the story play out more and more until I get to the present. I like who I am now. I've been lucky enough to attend 2 amazing schools. I'm in good shape (more importantly, my back doesn't hurt that much anymore). I like to drink but am by no means an alcoholic. I don't watch a ton of TV. My favorite thing is that for some reason people seem to like me (I haven't yet figured out why, but I'm not gonna correct anybody). When I was growing up, all I wanted was for people to like me. I suppose I'm not unique in that way, but (1) I'm willing to admit it and (2) it's all that's really every mattered to me.
This post was prompted by a conversation with my roommate and soon to be close friend Scott. I told him a lot of what I've just written: that I was really shy, insecure about being liked, and still am both shy and insecure about being liked. He was fairly incredulous that I questioned my own like-ability. I'll admit hearing him say that made me feel really good. I assured him it was the truth and that anything I did to make people like me was the result of years of hard work and effort. I told him the best part of having close friends is having people who care about what you think and want to hear what you have to say (or at least pretend to). I didn't always have that.
The hardest part of reminiscing is trying to figure out why things changed. I've been keeping a mental list: college, fraternity, Edgar, Marc, Conner, Corinne, Wade, Fed, Neff, Jake, Miles, sports, reading, and of course the entire Jersey crew. I am grateful to all of these people and places. I know that I've left some people off the list but only because the list would have become infinite, not because I am any less grateful. To all of you, thank you.
I suppose what I like most about me now is that I have many wonderful friends. It's really cool having people who text you out of the blue, who will answer when you text them out of the blue, who will have a late night "name a desert" challenge with you, who let you know what's going on when you're not around, who have difficult discussions with their boyfriends to spend time with you... What scares me now is that I may one day lose all of it, so I work really hard to prevent that from happening.
However, worrying about losing it is so much better than not having it at all. I know what that's like. I'm really glad how things have changed.
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I remember thinking that coffee and beer were disgusting, TV was the greatest thing ever, and how the Yankees winning or losing dictate my mood until they played again. I used to think anybody who did any kind of drug was a bad person. I thought snow was a blast, oatmeal looked stupid, and poop was a funny word (I still think poop is funny).
5 years ago, I thought I had everything figured out. I knew what I liked, and I knew what I didn't. I loved sports and cherry pie and hated gefilte fish and reading. Now I love sports and reading, think cherry pie is much too sweet, and still hate gefilte fish. I knew what I was really bad at. I was much better at writing than I was at math and was too shy to speak in public. Now speaking may be my best skill, my writing has gotten me into grad school, and I'm currently in math camp for algebra and calculus.
I wouldn't say that I am proud of the person who I was. I can't even say I liked the person I was. I'd be embarrassed for the people I've met in the last few years to know what I was like before college. It would be a person they didn't recognize. I am grateful to the people who did know me then that they don't hold it against me. They knew me when I wore glasses (3rd grade to 12th grade), refused to wear jeans, and stuttered. They knew me when I wore Yankees shirts everyday, took ultimate frisbee wayyyyyy too seriously, and directed a really dumb TV show.
The best part of reminiscing is letting the story play out more and more until I get to the present. I like who I am now. I've been lucky enough to attend 2 amazing schools. I'm in good shape (more importantly, my back doesn't hurt that much anymore). I like to drink but am by no means an alcoholic. I don't watch a ton of TV. My favorite thing is that for some reason people seem to like me (I haven't yet figured out why, but I'm not gonna correct anybody). When I was growing up, all I wanted was for people to like me. I suppose I'm not unique in that way, but (1) I'm willing to admit it and (2) it's all that's really every mattered to me.
This post was prompted by a conversation with my roommate and soon to be close friend Scott. I told him a lot of what I've just written: that I was really shy, insecure about being liked, and still am both shy and insecure about being liked. He was fairly incredulous that I questioned my own like-ability. I'll admit hearing him say that made me feel really good. I assured him it was the truth and that anything I did to make people like me was the result of years of hard work and effort. I told him the best part of having close friends is having people who care about what you think and want to hear what you have to say (or at least pretend to). I didn't always have that.
The hardest part of reminiscing is trying to figure out why things changed. I've been keeping a mental list: college, fraternity, Edgar, Marc, Conner, Corinne, Wade, Fed, Neff, Jake, Miles, sports, reading, and of course the entire Jersey crew. I am grateful to all of these people and places. I know that I've left some people off the list but only because the list would have become infinite, not because I am any less grateful. To all of you, thank you.
I suppose what I like most about me now is that I have many wonderful friends. It's really cool having people who text you out of the blue, who will answer when you text them out of the blue, who will have a late night "name a desert" challenge with you, who let you know what's going on when you're not around, who have difficult discussions with their boyfriends to spend time with you... What scares me now is that I may one day lose all of it, so I work really hard to prevent that from happening.
However, worrying about losing it is so much better than not having it at all. I know what that's like. I'm really glad how things have changed.
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