High Town and Fancy To Do

So, it is I, the prodigal daughter returned from abroad (but with far better luck than the prodigal son had). Studying abroad had a big impact on me, in a totally different way than I expected. I hadn't thought to blog about any of this until I read the posts of some friends, but I feel suddenly inspired and slightly sleep-deprived, so needless to say I'm running with it.

Someone wrote about how much they long for life to just come upon them, sweep them up in all the excitement that must be out there. Now, excitement has never been particularly hard to come by--for better or worse--in my life, but none of it seems super extraordinary to me. So it's making me wonder if it's all just a matter of perspective. For example, I've traveled to some ridiculous number like 16 foreign countries (don't hate) and it seems like every time I mention it in conversation, someone will say something to the effect of, "How exciting! That must have been amazing! How special you must feel!" And I always immediately feel awkward an mumble something about "Yeah hmmmrrhmmmrrr great opportunities hhmmmwwrrrr really lucky [uncomfortable cough]." But the truth is, it doesn't seem that fantastical to me. Of course I recognize how fortunate I am/have been, but that's thing #1 that I learned abroad: life is life, no matter where you live it. So many people have asked about what Italy was like, and yes there are definitely differences between here and there, but I was more or less the same person, and consequently lived my life in more or less the same fashion as I do at home. It makes me wonder if it's only the idea of exciting things that is, in fact, exciting--with the exception of love, since it is an endless roller coaster (and kudos to my best friend for reminding me of that).

That in turn made me wonder as to how much excitement or happiness are we capable of establishing in our lives on our own. Ya know, a lot of people will sit around saying how boring their lives are or how hard things have been for them. But note: they are sitting around and talking about it, rather than getting up and making any sort of change. Now it's a bit different when you still live at home, with your parent(s), because the conditions are not fully up to you. But if you have a job you don't like, talk to your boss, or look for a new job, or hell, quit and take out a student loan and go back to school and declare a theater major. If you don't like your friends, find new ones and suddenly you'll be too busy for the annoying people in your life. Why be unhappy? And if it's excitement you seek, I highly recommend just going to a theme park or going on blind dates (although both of those are prone to lead to more horror than excitement at times), but don't put the full responsibility of your life's excitement level in the hands of fate--she's got enough going on.

But the truth I've found is that nothing is exciting unless you will it so. That's the rub, isn't it? Most of us lead decent lives with average amounts of happy and sad and we crap all over it by wishing it was different or that we were different. I was at college transfer orientation this past week and it was (for the most part) incredibly exciting for me. Orientation is quite possibly one of the most mind-numbing experiences college students must endure, but I went out of my way to meet and get to know people, to step out of my comfort zone, to declare to my English advisor that I didn't want to be an English major any more and be thrilled when it worked out anyway, to sit down with a plate full of impossible-to-eat-attractively food next to people I'd never spoken to before and say, "Hey New Friend, I'm Lauren." (true story, I think the poor guy was initially pretty terrified). Conversely, when my study abroad started, I didn't expect it to be super exciting since it was a country I'd been to once before, and at first it wasn't. Now, when I finally got over myself and started looking for the fun and excitement--WOAH! MAGIC!--there it was, waiting in all the same places I first found disappointment.

Maybe this isn't true for everyone. Maybe for others, joy must be handed to them by the world, or the world at least needs to pull its weight a bit more. And believe me, I know that life can really be heartless sometimes, I'm not asking for anyone to laugh at funerals here; life really can just suck sometimes, for no good or fair reason whatsoever. But remember when it was bath time when you were little? And you turned spoons and cups and bowls into ships and mermaids and sea monsters and bath time was the very best time in the whole wide world? What happened to that?

Wander on.