Shedding Light on Monologues for the Blind

When I thought of what to write about this week, I really wasn’t sure. Maybe a heartfelt goodbye about my year away at college, seeing as I will not be attending again in the fall (more to come there). Or maybe I could write about how people interact with each other around different company. I’ve had what seems like a lacking week when it comes to being able to think, and so writing this week has seemed to be a difficult task. While I write for the readers — of course —  I also write to help myself articulate my own thoughts. But I haven’t had many thoughts recently. So maybe this is the place to have them, for everyone to see. Rather than write down my observations of others thoughts and my own after I filter through them, maybe I should let you observe mine as they come to me, and draw your own thoughts on it. A little experiment I guess.

We interact with a group of people. We teach and learn with them. We grow and develop with them. I did this when I went off to school. I met new people, and flourished in a new environment for learning. Now, the semester is over. and I have come back to Western New York.

I immediately came back to my friends from high school. My first thought, upon seeing my friends and my family was fear. Now, that’s not exactly the most normal reaction. But, I was afraid. I was afraid this person I’d become when I was off at school, a person I liked and wanted to maintain, might end up lost when I was reintroduced to my old friend groups. I’d learned so much about myself and the way I think when I was off at college. Now that I am back, I was worried it might not be compatible. It’s a very judgmental thing to say, that your friends and family may not be compatible with you anymore. I acknowledge that, considering I have been home no more than a week, I could just be overreacting.

Regardless, I continue. We change with who we are around. I wasn’t afraid that I could not interact with my friends anymore. In fact, I knew I could. I was afraid I would have to give up how I had learned to act in college to adapt back to this group of people. It feels like I am back in the summer after senior year of high school. No one has a care in the world and I’m falling behind in mental activity.

Knowing that these are purely my thoughts recently, it helps to know a bit of the back story -- the events that produced these thoughts. On the eight hour drive home, I tried to talk with my family and friends about subjects I found important -- things that weren’t so black and white or things that were just challenging. I initiated conversations about colloquialism, the environment, psychology, and philosophy. While I was able to hold the conversation for a few minutes, it would mostly divert from that to an inside joke about a random event or internet meme. I was always striving for more content in the conversations.

When I was off at college, I was spoiled. Anytime I wanted, I could have a conversation with a friend delving into human understanding deeper than I had ever tried before. She always wanted to have bigger conversations, and so I was always a willing participant. I always look for the next thing to crush my understanding and blow my mind, for lack of a better term. It’s been difficult to figure out that not everyone strives for that at every moment.

Given that this the first moment I’ve been able to sit down and articulate my thoughts, it feels as though I have been running at a million miles per hour for the last week, yet have done nothing productive. That is simply the feeling of just existing.

Unfortunately, this mostly entails a lot of bad things. That’s part of human nature -- the positive negative feedback loop. We notice the bad more than the good. Overall I have had a wonderful week, it has been carefree and easygoing. But, for the same reasons, that can be both good and bad.

Now you’ve just witnessed my inner monologue. If it seems slightly scattered, that’s because

I can be a scatterbrained person. I hope my experiment was slightly successful. If not, I am sorry I put you through that.

That was my submission to Niagara’s Watercooler a week or two ago. I’m glad they gave me a chance to look it back over again with fresh eyes, because I can say things about it now that I wasn’t able to before. The person that wrote that, is not the same person who is writing this. There has been more time for me to absorb being back home. Those thoughts I had before I have been marinating for some time and now I can comment on it in a different way.

After rereading it, other than fixing some ridiculous grammatical mistakes, I noticed how it made me feel. The person who wrote this felt very empty. Like something was missing and he didn’t have much of a direction. It seemed he had just finished a chapter of his life and now it seemed like he didn’t know what was next to come.

A  person very important to me said  to always be okay with being alone. People will come and go. It’s important to be able to be alone and enjoy time to yourself. For the same reasons, it’s important to be able to do what you do, with others, by yourself as well. If I didn’t find myself dependent on those enthralling conversations about things I felt were bigger than myself, I wouldn’t have that feeling of emptiness. I would just have those thoughts myself. When someone else comes along as willing to talk about such things, I can just pick it back up again. While I’m not sure I agreed with her then, I definitely do now. Learn to be by yourself.

Derick Sears apologizes to the editors of Niagara’s Watercooler. “i am very sorry.”