I have many lives, it seems. I have my family, my friends from my hometown, college, and the Vineyard. Within those larger groups, there are subsets: different cliques (for lackthereof a better word) from high school, my rugby friends, ski team, roommates (at school and on MV), work friends, etc. etc. In short, it is difficult to be everywhere I want to be. I essentially left school the day I graduated, spent 24 hours at home, and then moved to the Vineyard to start working.
I haven't spent quality time with my friends from high school in months. I haven't had a good amount of family time either. On the whole, I missed Founder's Day, a dumb town holiday that is nontheless fun, that would have been spent with my high school friends. I missed a crazy weekend in New York that my college friends partook in. I've missed graduation parties and helping my mom and siblings with my dad's surgery (he had his hip replaced last Monday).
Ok, fine. I can't be everywhere at once, and I chose to come to the Vineyard, which has been so amazingly fun; I really wouldn't trade it. But even here, I feel like I miss out on things. For example, all of my roommates work during the day while I work at night. They do make family dinners and hang out. Of course, they are not complete without me, and its always more fun when all of us are together, but I can never shake the feeling that I'm missing out, on all aspects.
I think I've reached the juncture in life where I understand how easy it is to let people fall out of your life. Despite all types of preventions, now comes the time where we decide who to keep, who is worth the call, the mailed note, the facebook chat. If you're reading, I miss all of you, and I love all of you.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
generation 'me': the hottest of hot topics
I don't understand why seemingly all of the sudden, print media and media in general have been pontificating about the so called entitlement and spoiled nature of Generation Y. I know I have written about this before, and the topic is pretty much everywhere you look: in the commencement speeches and baccalaureate homily, in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, on CNN and the evening news.
What all assume about our generation is this: we are spoiled, entitled; doted on by our parents and given things that were undeserved such as trophies and grades. I want to make this argument: why is it that the fact that when we were six and seven and we played soccer and got a stupid trophy for participating a point on which the older generation proves that we are selfish and stupid? Why the trophy for God's sake? Kids know when praise is undeserved. Adults praised us anyway. Maybe I was a particularly realistic child, but no matter how smart or pretty my parents thought I was or told me I was, there was somewhere in the back of my mind that knew they had to say these things as parents. Yes, I was smart enough, and I wasn't ugly. But I knew I was not number one in either category. I have a hard time believing that anyone could actually believe parents and teachers who buttered us up, just because they knew how nice it is to want to believe in yourself.
I move onto this: why does trophy giving make us spoiled? Didn't it, rather, make us that much more striving to achieve? Want to prove that we were deserving of the praise, deserving of the grades, deserving of the trophy? In the homily at the baccalaureate mass, the night before graduation, the Jesuit speaking mentioned this: "to whom much is given, much is expected." We have not gotten a chance to prove how much we can do yet, and our parents generation has been quick to break us down: after a lifetime of encouragement, they have unleashed a jealous wrath, commenting on our optimism; characterizing it as a weakness. Weak, I am not. Entitled, I am not. Resilient, I am. We are.
What all assume about our generation is this: we are spoiled, entitled; doted on by our parents and given things that were undeserved such as trophies and grades. I want to make this argument: why is it that the fact that when we were six and seven and we played soccer and got a stupid trophy for participating a point on which the older generation proves that we are selfish and stupid? Why the trophy for God's sake? Kids know when praise is undeserved. Adults praised us anyway. Maybe I was a particularly realistic child, but no matter how smart or pretty my parents thought I was or told me I was, there was somewhere in the back of my mind that knew they had to say these things as parents. Yes, I was smart enough, and I wasn't ugly. But I knew I was not number one in either category. I have a hard time believing that anyone could actually believe parents and teachers who buttered us up, just because they knew how nice it is to want to believe in yourself.
I move onto this: why does trophy giving make us spoiled? Didn't it, rather, make us that much more striving to achieve? Want to prove that we were deserving of the praise, deserving of the grades, deserving of the trophy? In the homily at the baccalaureate mass, the night before graduation, the Jesuit speaking mentioned this: "to whom much is given, much is expected." We have not gotten a chance to prove how much we can do yet, and our parents generation has been quick to break us down: after a lifetime of encouragement, they have unleashed a jealous wrath, commenting on our optimism; characterizing it as a weakness. Weak, I am not. Entitled, I am not. Resilient, I am. We are.
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
my new life
I'm grown up now, didn't you hear? I just moved into my new home for the next four months. It's amazing. I haven't blogged in awhile, but I'm tired from working, so I will cook up something good at a later date. Maybe friday. I'm within walking distance to my favorite bars, and with some of my favorite people. I have new, awesome roommates. I'm really, really missing my college friends, and I feel like we're going back to school in the fall even though we aren't.
is everyone else having a great summer?
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