Hello again. And here we go. Another week, another blog. In sites.
I actually quite like blogging, it requires me to reflect a little. A lot of the time I start brainstorming about what to write by mulling over my life’s recent events – my job, my classes, my friends, my stressors as I move through an everyday existence.
And then without fail, I find that I might just be a touch boring, maybe even mundane. It’s a terrifying thought. And how couldn’t it be – especially when you’re confronted by it weekly, each time with the same alarming confusion like a fish bumping into the glass wall of its bowl.
So what do you write about as that Sunday deadline approaches. And is my life dull? Really?
I meander towards current events. Thinking about all the muchness I’ve read over the past week or two. I could write about them, they engulf us. I could write about them.
At this point I find my brain wandering into the ideas I’ve read. Ideas about time and media and relationships and history.
And I eventually, finally, surmise that my life is monotonous. I’m not a jetsetting traveler, an athlete, a genius. I’m not a scene-making, news-breaking dramatic that breathes energy into empty spaces. I’m a college student, most of the time I’m in either jeans or leggings. Occasionally you’ll find me in slacks.
I go to class, spend time with friends, work as an intern, send out applications and sometimes manage to sleep. It’s circular, one day falls onto the previous which falls into the next. I even discover myself in situations where yesterday becomes the present, merging into one giant glob. Yes, imagine that one with no sleep.
Trust me, I realize that my life might not be of interest to many people. Yet I’m happy. My tiny existence, ironically, frees me.
It liberates me to experience things I could never imagine. This fish has interned at Warner Brothers, Penn State Athletics, the PR company in New York City that just won the best mid-sized agency of the year. I’ve lived on different continents, been an exchange student and gained US citizenship.
I hug my friends and call my parents often. I cry watching movies and YouTube videos. I like doing the dishes and getting people coffee. Walking across a busy street makes me really happy. I’m trying to be a little more human, a little more vulnerable, and in the moments when I creep closer to achieving that my heart balloons.
Nothing is too small. I am not the exception. My life is an ordinary one, and sometimes that simply makes it extraordinary.
Amy, a beautiful blog indeed.
It is freeing to be aware of our existences. The reflection brought by your blog is very fulfilling too. The reality is that the majority of lives are not extraordinary by a common definition. They may have grand moments and terrible moments, but the baseline is simply content and satisfaction. The majority of our lives happen in the ordinary, unspectacular flow of everyday life. Yet that does not make the tiny moments less fulfilling, or less of a life. In fact, it could even be argued that feeling alive while doing something like the dishes, feeling full of life in that moment, somehow feels more special, than the fleeing high of a once in the life time experience that fades away momentarily.
Hey Amy,
I really loved reading your blog post and I found myself resonating a lot with it:) I, too, find myself every other Sunday bouncing around what I should write in an attempt to find something meaningful to share.
However, I often find my routine similarly very routine and not note worthy. I see my weeks ahead of me following a similar pattern and at points I do feel like I’m aimlessly going through the motions, but then I usually bounce back with feeling super lucky to have the life I’m living.
I’m very content with my life, hobbies, friends and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I think I often need to remind myself that its okay to feel like this and this post really reaffirmed that for me. Thanks for sharing!
Amy, thank you for sharing!
I have felt extremely anxious these past few weeks as my weekly routine has really set in – and sometimes hasn’t set in. I know that I am not particularly interesting compared to the next person. I wake up, go to class, do homework, partake in extracurriculars, try to go to the gym but end up watching netflix instead until the cycle repeats.
Anything I do could be done by my next door neighbors. But, in these stressful times I remind myself that is why I love my life. I am exactly where I need to be doing exactly what I should be doing. I remind myself that in a few short years my life will be entirely different. It may be just as mundane but it will be mundane in a different sense. So now, I focus on soaking in all the mundane things that one day won’t be.