Jasmine: Get a life

I made a goal this semester. This semester I was going to “get a life.” But what does that mean, “get a life?”

life (līf)
n. pl. lives (līvz)
1 a : the quality that distinguishes a vital and functional plant or animal from a dead body b : a state of living characterized by capacity for metabolism, growth, reaction to stimuli, and reproduction
2 a : the sequence of physical and mental experiences that make up the existence of an individual b : a specific part or aspect of the process of living

I had and have a life. I inhale exhale, I eat and my cells break down glucose molecules for energy to go about their business of repairing and reproducing themselves. Physically I’m in fairly good shape, eighteen years old, I’ll probably never be as healthy and toxin free as I am now. I go about my daily tasks, class, homework, eat, sleep, repeat. Is there anything wrong with that? Is that not living? Is that not having a life?

That was first semester. And it worked for me. I would have kept on as I was except for that niggling little feeling that it could be better. That I was used to better, that I had had better at some point in my past and could have it again. That maybe all hope didn’t fly more than a thousand miles away in two completely different directions leaving me peering at the horizon wondering when they might return. So I planned.

Step one: make a friend

Over and over again I have done this, rebuilt who I was, or more who I had every few years or so. In elementary school I was in a very small class. One year there were only eight of us. What that meant to me is that I had maybe two good friends, if that. And when i switched to the Academy these friendships disappeared. It took two years and the arrival of a nifty strange girl to make friends again. This time I had three in a class of a hundred and fifty. Once again I left, started all over again. La Cueva freshman year I had no friends. None. No one to talk to for more than ten minutes at lunch. It was one of the most miserable years of my social life. Sophomore year I made a friend and then promptly lost her that summer because I “changed.” Yes there was a boy involved, but people change, it’s a fact, and I guess we didn’t change at the same rate. Junior year I had a different friend and then I acquired a second friend near the end of the year. Which was good because the first of these left into a frightening big haired abyss. Senior year was a relationship experiment. I interacted with a group that hovered around thirty people in number on a weekly basis or sometimes more often. But by the end of it I still had relatively few friends, and a large share of them left at the end of the summer.

The moral of that very long paragraph is that I don’t make very many true friends, and the ones that I do make, leave quickly.

It takes a lot for me to consider someone my friend. Too much really. So while I don’t think I’ll be able to make a new friend here for many years, I may be able to make an acquaintance or two. My original goals were to further befriend Sarah’s roommate Kirby, my old lab partner Neesha, and my roommates friend Dan. On the Kirby front I seem to be progressing well. She seems less and less weirded out by me and almost completely unafraid of me molesting her in a dark alley. Whether or not she’s an idiot for not being afraid waits to be seen. I have high hopes for her. My lab partner has disappeared from the face of the earth, and I believe that when she went home over break she was smashed by a passing semi or something. And my roommates friend seems less interesting this semester than he did last semester. So… yeah, Kirby, yep.

Step Two: Get an activity… or two

In high school I had a few activities to keep me… active. All of them school related. Books, science, I’m a nerd, you know this. But I came to college and I had nothing to make me leave my “cave” (Meghan coined the term, I find it agreeable. The lofted bed makes it feel very cave-like.) I would go to class and come back to the cave drawn by a very visible tie to my laptop and the people it has access to. Every once in a while Sarah would bribe me to lapo and I would see other examples of humanity.

This semester I have weekly things, sort of responsibilities that make me actually want to leave my room. First came laptag. Laptag is something worth abandoning the world for a day. Laptag and its trimmings, Jarrod’s house, food, a bunch of people I know and at least somewhat like half the time all jumbled together. Definitely worth it. Next was supposed to come a math study group but that still hasn’t managed to meet. But we will! Yes… we will! Instead next happened to be Karate club. Meghan joined a tae kuan do club where she is, and I know I was falling behind in the physical department so… I stepped it up. Kirby and I also work out a few times a week, I count that too. Muahahahaha!

Step Three: Stop being lonely?

Nah, not going to happen. I miss you guys too much. I’m lonely. I deal. We all live our lives as best we can with what we have to work with.

Anyways I wrote this blog because Meghan pointed out to me sometime last week that I’d gotten a life. That I wasn’t always available to her and Doug to talk to or type to, and that’s one of the downsides of it, but the upside is that I will eventually be able to do the splits! And kick like a friggin machine!

“There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats.” – Albert Schweitzer

Muahahaha cats

“I want a kitty” – Jasmine Brasel age negative three months