I officially booked my trip to Chicago/Denver. After wanting to cancel and take an aeroplane instead, I realised the difficulty of that and decided to just stick with my original plan and head out to Chicago before getting to Denver. Booking my hostel was the last step, and now it’s all finished up. To those that I’ll be seeing in Denver, I’ll get to see you just as much with either plan, and I’ll be there from Thursday, the tenth, until the following Sunday or Monday. I’ve already forgotten which.
In other news, summer is going… all right, I suppose. I’ve been working a bit more than thirty hours per week at my summer job down on Main Street. It’s hot and sweaty work, but there’s a lot of it that I really enjoy. I wasn’t expecting to feel so stressed about it this summer as I am, but I’m attributing that to the increase in hours and the bizarre weather that we’ve been having. It’s far too hot for June. This weekend has been the first time in three weeks that it’s been even remotely nice outside. Sorry, but I’m so sick of constant 37 degree days over and over again. I need to be in the Northwest stat. I’m pretty sure that I’m far too Irish to put up with these extreme weathers from the Midwest. It’s just not suiting me any more.
It’s all that I can think about any more: how much I don’t belong here. I used to only get upset about the Midwest because of the lack of culture and things to see and do, but now I’m finding that it’s far more than that. Even aside from the fact that I am meant for cool and rainy weather (oh, hey Northwest), the personality of where I live just doesn’t fit me. It’s been difficult to explain this to my mother who doesn’t understand why I’d ever want to leave. This is, after all, the place where I have grown up. But I just can’t stay here any longer; it’s like trying to fit a puzzle piece where it doesn’t quite go. Sure, you can keep it there, and from a distant it won’t matter, but in the end, you know that piece doesn’t go there. That’s the best way that I can describe it.
I’ve started looking into grad schools, and I’m so sure that I want to go to the Northwest. Everyone asks me why. They tell me that it rains constantly there and that people are depressed. I tell them that there are book stores and coffee shops and interesting people there. I tell them that I avoid the sun like the plague to begin with, so this would finally allow me to live freely. I’ll keep searching in other locations, too, but I can’t deny that I’d like to spend some time there. At least for the five years of grad school. After that’s all finished up with, I can decide for sure what’s right for me. That, or I can take my doctoral degree and get the hell out to some place else; sometimes these things take experimentation.
I’m just a little torn between the fact that I want to go to the Northwest, yet a large university near my home town also offers the degree I want (family and marriage counselling at SLU). Everyone wants me to go to SLU.
Well, everyone except me, I suppose.
I want you to go to school in the north west! Then I’ll have an excuse to get back up there. Oh my god, I had the best salmon I’ve ever had in my life in Seattle. Wish I could have spent more time there. And Mount Ranier … beautiful! Best hiking I’ve done outside of Colorado by far. Oh man, I want to go back so bad. There’s actually a school in Seattle I am considering doing grad school at, if I want to go ahead and get a full medical degree. We’ll see. It’s a lot of work.
The one down side is that the sperm donor is living there. Or at least he was last I heard. But what are the chances you would run into him? And, of course, the north west doesn’t have to mean Seattle (although if you choose Washington, really you don’t want to stray too far from Seattle or Tacoma, trust me … I went to Japan with a unit out of Washington, and they get WAY different out of the city). And of course there’s always Oregon (which I’d probably choose over Washington for living in, Portland is amazing). You’d probably even do well in northern California, actually.
I can totally see that you’re not much of a midwest girl. I know at your age I was really in to the thought of the north west too. I mean, it’s kind of the hip place to be for artsy, poetsy, sweater loving hipsters. It’s cheaper than New York and not as hot as Austin. If I were to move out of Denver now, though, I’d choose New Mexico. It’s a little less cliche. Plus, I love the sun. Way more than a red head probably should. LOL.
Not everyone in the northwest is depressed, I don’t know where people get these stereotypes from. And yeah, it rained a fair amount in Seattle when I went, but I think it rains just as much in St. Louis. I mean, if you don’t like rain, you shouldn’t be in the northwest OR the midwest. You need to go someplace like Colorado or New Mexico or Arizona. And it’s more humid in St. Louis. And hotter in the summer, and colder in the winter. It’s actually a very mild temperature year round in Seattle.
I think it’s good to get away from your comfort zone for at least a few years as part of growing up. I did it by joining the Army, you could do it by going to grad school. You may find yourself wanting to go back home again at the end of it all, and that’s okay. But you don’t want to be one of these, for lack of a better term, bumpkins that are too scared to leave their little patch of the world and see what else is out there. If you want to be an intelligent, informed, strong and capable adult, you have to get out there and experience the world, live in it, be a part of it. Not that the midwest isn’t the world, but it’s not for you. It’s the womb for you. It’s all you’ve really known. You don’t want to stay a fetus forever. Get out of your womb and live.
I have this pressing fear of never escaping Missouri, so it has become more important than ever to get away to some place that suits me more. I’m glad that you have positive things to say about the Northwest. Everyone that I talk to seems to think that it’s hell on Earth there since there’s rain. Really now? It may be dreary for three fourths of the year, but that’s the type of weather I like anyway.
And I’m not quite sure where in the Northwest I’d go. Definitely looking into Portland and Seattle. It’s mostly finding a grad school with a programme that I like enough. By this point, I’ve even put thought into just getting a general masters in psychology (maybe a social psychology or industrial or marriage counselling) and then getting my doctoral degree and doing who the hell knows what. I figure that, with that kind of degree, there will be a lot of options open for whatever I end up wanting to do. A lot of me was so sure on the counselling aspect, but the more and more I think about it, the more it all freaks me out. I suppose you could say that I’m in my mid-BS degree crisis.
Hey, girl!
I highly doubt that you will be in Missouri for the rest of your life. Just going to put that out here right now. And the hell with it if you don’t want to go to SLU. Easy answer there: don’t go. It’s got what you want, so it may be a good thing to keep in the back of your mind as a last choice, but by all means, keep looking for other places. I’m sure you’ll find something. Just don’t look for a program that’ll get you out of Missouri, but doesn’t have what you really want.
There’s no need to freak out. You’ve got time and the determination to figure things out. You can get out of Missouri and got to grad school and get your doctorate and live in Germany for a while if you want, and there is really nothing to stop you from doing that.
Oh! And congrats on booking your trip! Have fun!!!
Ha, thanks. Yeah, I just feel like I’m going through a mini mid-life crisis. Figuring things out is difficult. :( But I’ll get there; no worries.
Yeah, I don’t know why rain has to equal depressing, too. I lived in a place for a year where it only rained twice, for a grand total of maybe 30 mintues TOGETHER. And one of those times was hurricane Ivan. You know what? It was depressing. Everything was all brown and gross. At the golf course, they gave you a square of astroturf to carry around with you to tee off of. One time, an iguana ate my NCO’s golf ball. LOL.
Just take a vitamin D supplement, you’ll be fine. You probably should be taking vit D anyhow, because I bet you wear sunscreen every day.