Kiana

In high school, I mostly read Paulo Coelho’s work. There was this one quote that I have honestly kept out of mind, but which resurfaced just now. It’s something about having the wrong answers because we ask the wrong questions…I may be misremembering it.

Going back to college feels like a truckload of questions, after a year of thinking about whether or not to go back. I could have written down all the questions: the questions I’m forced by circumstance to ask; all the ironies I’m putting myself in, unwillingly, just to get by; all the molds I skedaddled right into. I want to remember them, just in case. I want to be reminded that I once was brave, although unconventional, brave nevertheless. I want to be reminded of this stage in my life when I made decisions for myself, which could potentially impact the future. I want to remember how good—but also equally terrifying—taking the reins, ruling your life, being accountable to yourself is.

But it’s fine, enough with the future-talk. What I’m here (and anxious) for is the present. I have read enough meditation and mindfulness books to know that the present isn’t a photocopy of the Garden of Eden. My present is more like The Garden of Earthly Delights, digitized and projected in my brain—a real, live social experiment, or whatever. It’s chaotic, but I’m here for it. I love it, but also genuinely loathe it. I am so ironic, which makes me a candidate for becoming a person who is full of shit.

Yesterday there were some students talking about someone I know and admire out in the hallway, and because I’m a horrible person who has no self-respect, I continued to eavesdrop. They were talking about how this person uses pseudonyms during classes (“Like, why not just use your real name?! Duh BE IN THE REAL WORLD”), how this pseudonym-bearing “horrendous” human also happens to click with almost every professor in the hallway. UUUUUGHCK I have to stop ’cause I don’t wanna mess your psyches, my angels. Basically, they were spewing hate. The person they were talking about was someone who I think is hecking cool, and whom I admire so much. For me, every time I go out to the world I’m seeking an opportunity, or experience, or trigger to think less of myself. Cool.

Let me share with you my to-do list for the week (for the whole month, even), from Rainier Maria Rilke’s first letter in Letters to a Young Poet: “…to keep growing, silently and earnestly, through your whole development; you couldn’t disturb it any more violently than by looking outside and waiting for outside answers to questions that only your innermost feeling, in your quietest hour, can perhaps answer.”

This is it, you all. ♦