Fear of Drowning

So ends the first day of classes: me sitting in my room, trying desperately to interest myself in the minty new, five pound Biology textbook in front of me. I try reading with a highlighter in hand, an attempt to focus on key phrases, not to skim idly over the words. I make lists, obsessive lists. Lists of assignments, lists of things to buy, lists of things I forgot and need to ask my mother to send me... Lists make me feel better. The beginning of the semester is exciting and a little terrifying. The same old insecurities arise when you read over the syllabus, listen to the grading and attendance policies, take a gander at all the work you'll be expected to do over the coming weeks. Weeks that will fly by faster than you can bat an eye. Can I handle this? Am I smart enough? Will I be able to work past that stopped-up, shy throat to speak my mind in front of all these people? (Something I wonder if I will ever truly conquer). How hard will this be, really? All questions that dog the mind as you meander from destination to destination and scribble out lists. Yet these doubts are the flip side of my desire to succeed. It is a fear of drowning that makes me swim so hard.

Yet... life is more than lists. Life is sitting in the sun reading a poem you don't understand; life is listening to the happy chatter of the girls down the hall; it is listening to the poetry and soul of the people around you. It's sort of magical and inspiring and intimidating. I think, "Who the hell am I? What have I done?" Then it occurs to me that I could just as easily ask myself, "Who do I want to be?"

I can't decide if I like being with people who are just beginning to know me. It's a little exciting to present yourself to people who do not have preconceived notions about you. On the other hand, I miss the trust and confidences of the people who know me so well... people who I know already accept me implicitly. I try to come back around to my own sense of identity and faith in myself. Don't compare your insides to other people's outsides, I tell myself.

Who do I want to be? I want to be me and not worry about being whoever that is.