So Different, Yet the Same

Parking at Weber is often ridiculous. In fact, if you arrive anywhere between 8:01 and 11:19, you are typically going to spend up to an hour driving through parking lots looking for someone is leaving right that second. I was one of the people who did this several times a week until I realized that it is so much faster just to park at the Dee Events Center and take the shuttle to canvas. That is where I parked today.

After getting off of the shuttle, I noticed that the walkway headed toward the Union Building had white and purple balloons lining it every few feet. I was confused until I saw a sign saying "Wildcat Welcome" with an arrow directing people toward the UB. I was then hit with a realization. Today was Wildcat Welcome. How have we managed to get through an entire month of 2012 with me only barely realizing it? It's crazy really. I remember going to wildcat welcome last year with Carley and our friend Claire. We were all so excited.

Now, a year later, and Claire is in California. Carley and I are going to Weber on very different schedules and having completely different experiences. But back then we were all in the same place; we were all Layton High seniors with big dreams and hardly any clue what we were actually doing. I think that could really describe most of the people that I knew from my senior class at the time.

Where did the last year go? Somewhere between my own Wildcat Welcome and now I managed to graduate high school, work through the drama that is Boondocks during the summer, and survive my first semester of college. I feel like all of this went by in a blur.

And guess what?

I still feel exactly like that Layton High senior with big dreams and no idea what I'm actually going to do with my life.

How is it that some parts of our lives leave us feeling like a completely different person and yet other, more eventful, periods of time end with us feeling like the exact same person we were? It's almost as if I've been standing on stage. The scenery behind me is constantly changing, yet I continue to stand there, looking into the audience with absolutely no idea of what is going on.

The more likely possibility is that I just haven't taken the time to notice all the ways that I've changed in the past year. I'm sure if I spent one day with any of my friends from high school (minus Kara who is the only one I'm still really in contact with) they would be able to tell me any number of things that seem different. Or maybe not. Maybe the changes of the last year were so subtle that they aren't easily noticed right now. Maybe those changes haven't really been completed yet.

mL would certainly be able to point out differences in myself that I haven't noticed. The big difference there is that I haven't seen her in nearly three years. I was going through such huge changes in my life around the time when she moved to Texas that I'm not even sure if we'd be compatible friends anymore. Who knows how much she changed during that time frame.

Anyway, as you can see, my brain wasn't really focused on Human Development of The Short Life of Francis Macombre today. I spent most of my classes thinking about how different things are now and how not different I feel.

Happy February, everyone!