Where to go from this point?
25 March, 2002 :: 8:00 a.m.
I really need to be reading for American Romanticism, but if I don't get this out, my mind will just keep going over it and over it and I won't absorb what I'm reading anyway...
Emily asked me this morning about going with her after school... We've both sort of hinted at it and danced around it...both too afraid of what will come of the conversation I think. Do I want to go with her? Honestly? Yes. And no. I've wanted out of Mansfield for a long time, I'm with someone who wants out of Mansfield...should I make that leap. Part of me says "Yes. This place is not doing anything for you." Another part of me says "No. You have unfinished business here."
Emily and I have been getting along really well most of the semester with only minor tiffs usually when either I'm tired or she's already in a bad mood. But we've had some major fights, some real doozies (always wanted to use that word). Things have been going well this semester, but only after a HUGE fight where I honestly thought things were over for good. Maybe it was just both of us getting a lot of shit that we had stored up off of our chests, or maybe it was a hint that while we love each other, we don't belong together. I honestly don't know, but it put some reservations in my heart. All of our fights have. I've never fought so much with someone...and yeah, she says it's because she's not a doormat, but neither were any of the other girls I've dated...honestly. I've never been with a girl I walked all over and could impose my will on, and I wouldn't want to be. I want to be with someone that thinks and does things for herself, but also someone who will let me be me. I realize compromises have to be made in any relationship, but there are parts of me I can't let go of and don't know if I want to. Part of me wishes that I had been alone after things fell apart with Char (and Emily is probably right, I probably have held Char's and my relationship failing against her...had she not been in the picture, I don't know where Char and I would have ended up, but things never got to take their course...I had one girl saying she didn't know if she wanted me anymore and another expressing interest and I jumped ship without seeing if it was really sinking or had a fixable leak). It's not her fault though and I've tried not to hold it against her, but deep down, subconsciously, I realize I probably haven't let go of it all. But back to the being alone, as I've mentioned in previous entries, a big part of me used to enjoy being alone and now that part of me is so far buried I don't know where he is. Part of me wants to strike out and see what I can do when I have to do for myself...but I don't want to sacrifice what Emily and I have been building.
Part of the reason I haven't said, "Yes, I'll go wherever you go," is because she has no idea where she's going...she's talked of staying in the area (although I think that's just for me, not because she wants it), she's talked of moving home, going to Ocean City for the summer, Atlanta, New Orleans... I have 6 years in at Wal-Mart. One more and I'm fully vested and whatever money I have in my stakeholders, I walk away with 100%, plus whatever I've built up in my 401k...part of me wants to stick with that and have enough to live off when I'm just out of school and looking for a real life. Also, I know I have a tendency to let myself drift, and while Mansfield isn't my ideal school, I'm afraid if I leave, I won't finish or I'll at least put it off for a couple more years, and I'm already getting up there. I do not want to be 35-40 years old when I'm looking for my first real job. I'd like to be doing that by 30 and if I leave here I don't know that I will...but then I don't even have a definite major yet, so unless I declare liberal studies, what am I headed for anyway? If I declare liberal studies, what am I going to do with that when I get out of school? I'm scared and I don't have the answers to make me feel better. I wish I'd been one of those people that knew early on what they wanted and had the drive to get there, but I don't. If I bail now, where will I be in 10 years? Waiting tables? Still with Wal-Mart? Gas station attendant? (I said I wanted to work at a gas station at some point, just for the experience...I didn't say I wanted it to be a career). Also, I don't want to leave when Pat is coming back to school next semester... Maybe that sounds selfish, but it's true. We've built a real frienship since that first day where I dislike him on sight and he was scared of me...we've had some great times and I know we'd have a lot more if I stay a while longer. I miss our trips to Corning and to the Research Center...I miss talking about comics and movies while we play Gameday or Madden. I've missed out on a year of that and I want to get some of that back. Also, Andrew just died and was buried and cheesy as it may sound, I want to be around my nephew for a while to do that reading and other shit that I promised...plus his loss has made me feel a closer bond to family...my grandparents aren't going to be around much longer and I've been seriously negligent in visiting them when I live an hour away, so if I move, I'm probably not going to see them until I have to travel back for their funerals and that really scares me. Andrew's is the first death I've really felt in my family. The others were my great grandparents when I was too young to really understand what was going on. I need to be a better member of my family and I realize this now and moving away from them all seems wrong...but at the same time I don't feel like I'll find myself until I get out of here...so back to more decisions and no idea which is the right answer... I love Emily, but can I just walk away from everything I've known here and built here at this point in my life to go I don't even know where? I have like six weeks to decide and the pressure isn't helping...I really don't want to make the wrong choice...I've put if off hoping that I would just feel the right choice one day, but I've had no such epiphany and time is running short...
