I ran in the rain.

I took off my shoes and my sweater, I wanted to take off my shirt because it's legal here in Boulder, but I chickened out and didn't. I ran with a smile, feeling free and liberated, because Colorado is thirsty, and I'm thirsty here in Colorado. Although I love our sunny days, I love our beautiful mountains, I've never felt so at home, but I've never felt so thirsty. And I remember skinny dipping in the summer, a mountain lake, a real lake, and how I drank it with my mind so I wouldn't be thirsty. And I ran in the rain, quenching my thirst, each item of cloth on my body wet as the blood in my veins.  It's never enough here. Then, I remembered that first winter back from California. That first snowflake, and how I ran outside and stood there, in love.

Love. That's really what it's all about. That's why I wanted to cry today, but couldn't until the drops landed in my eyes and I was getting a little bit scared because of the lightning, and I was walking faster, but I couldn't see, couldn't open my eyes because of the raindrops hiding there but it felt so right, like I was finally crying. It's strange, I never once cried without first smiling, never once smiled without first shedding a tear, a cause and effect that happens so instantly it all blurs into one until it's all the same thing. Joy and sorrow, is there even a difference? A mountain lake, a snow flake, I miss here while I stand on this soil, I miss California, and I miss New York although I've never even been there. It's never right, it's never enough. But Colorado, I love you.

Why do I love? I know, in the end, it's a conscious decision to turn a spark into wildfire, to let go and to fall. So much I sacrifice, so many chances I take just for a kiss from somebody I love only to feel empty until I kiss them again.  Yet I still do, always, thinking ahead to when it will all end, a forest, deceased. It took so long for it to grow, and now it's gone. Have you ever seen a burned down forest? Don't tell me to look at the positive - to think of the plants that only grow in ashes and the future that will eventually come - until you've seen a burned down forest with your own eyes, a burned down forest you once used to love. I have.

And I forgot that rain makes me depressed.

Life Takes Decisions

My mother teases me for not making up my mind.  She tells me how she graduated highschool at 16, and went on straight to med school. She tells me how, by the time she was my age, she was already deciding on her speciality as a doctor.  I can't even imagine that.  At sixteen, I literally had no limitations on my interests. Physics or literature? Performance music or primary education? It all seemed like a viable option.  Upon entering college, I'd realized that my interests focus in the humanities, and began zooming in. Even now - nineteen years old, second semester in college, and a sophomore if you take a look at my credits - I can't even decide what to major in, I can't even decide if I even like this university.

But life, it takes decisions, and it's time I start making decisions, too. Last Thursday, I declared a Linguistics minor. The day after tomorrow, I'm declaring a Philosophy major, and then going on to find out about the Cognitive Science certificate program.  I'd considered a philosophy major since before I started college, I knew I'd do it as either a major or a minor, but deciding on a major seemed impossible: so many credits in one discipline! So many credits not in a variety of other disciplines! So much I would have to sacrifice for a philosophy major. I had to be sure, and it's the Cogntivie Science certificate program - restricted to Philosophy majors, among others - that served as my final push: Philosophy major it is; it's worth it.  I love this feeling - I am on track, I know what I am doing.  It feels so right, it feels great to make decisions pertaining to my life.

I'm on a roll with making decisions now, and I suddenly found myself rolling into new territory. I'm filling out transfer applications.  I am considering leaving CU. Maybe it's the recent rainy weather, or the fact that, due to my birth control, I've been bleeding heavily for more than a week straight, but I've been feeling depressed, lonely, and out of place. I really don't like CU or Boulder. I need to get out of here.

I settled for CU when I was selecting colleges. It's not like I didn't try. I'd been looking since tenth grade, but I didn't know what to look for. I didn't know what I'd major in, I didn't know whether I wanted in or out of state, I didn't know whether I wanted a city or a town. I knew I wanted a place that's bigger than my highschool of 4000, which did cut many colleges out of the picture, but not enough. I toured universities around Colorado and the Bay Area - a place that's very special to me, very close to my heart - but none of them seemed just quiet right. My counselor wasn't much help, either. His only suggestion was the University of Oregon. I am well acquainted with and absolutely adore Oregon and the Pacific North West, but I'm so glad I didn't go there. Even Boulder, just twenty minutes away from Denver, is too small for my taste, and, in a little rainy town in Oregon, I would have gone insane. In the end, I applied to three public Colorado Universities: CU Denver, CSU, and CU Boulder.  Boulder was my top choice, lying near the upper bounds of a "good match".  I got into all three. Even before I started college, I already began thinking about where I want to transfer.

I can't do this small town thing. I find myself dreaming of cities, of highrises and lights, of strange blocks and public buses.  Every time I go down to Denver, my heart starts to beat a little faster. I crave a city life, I'm begging to get to know it's every street, it's every turn. I crave to live, to really live, and I feel like I can't live here in Boulder.

I don't like CU. I hate how there is no diversity. I hate how everyone is white, and either from Colorado, California, Chicago, or New York.  I hate how everyone is rich and spoiled. I hate how no one cares, how they all think they are these cool hippies just because they smoke weed and wear overpriced "bohemian" clothes. I've found myself saying the same things I used to say when I was in highschool.  My sister told me I need to branch out more (of course, by that she means I need fewer queer friends, but that's beside the point), and I told her that I have no where to branch out, that I don't like the vast majority of people at CU, that I don't get along with most of the people here, and thus I have much fewer options. I've been saying that people don't care, and that they're too alike. In fact, this is just like Creek. I see Creek kids everywhere. I can't seem to get away from them. I don't know what to do. I feel trapped. A few weeks ago, I went to march for higher education down in Denver. It took off from Auraria campus - CU Denver, Metro State, and Community College of Denver. Midday on Wednesday, I looked around the campus, and I though, I love it here. I want to be here, the people here look real. Sure, they're still all white, but at least they resemble actual individuals, not like those in Boulder.  When I was waiting for acceptance letters, I was secretly hoping CU would reject me. Then, I would go to CU Denver, and I liked it there more.

I am currently applying to New York University, Washington University in St. Louis, and Denver University. The first two will be really hard to get into, and, if I do get in, I'll have to find some time to visit them before making a decision. I am fairly certain I'll get into DU, but I'm not sure if I'll accept of I do. I doubt my problems with CU will be successfully remedied in DU, except, perhaps, the part where I really want to live in a city. If I don't succeed this semester, I've got a few schools in mind that I'll apply to next year. University of Washington (ok, I know that, here I am, whining about the rain, and then considering life in Seattle, but I really love Washington state, it's one of those places I can already call home), Tufts, and Stanford (now I'm just getting ridiculous; however, I never took a risk when I first applied for colleges, and I want to take one now, I want rejection letters, please).

It's a bit very scary, but I know this is right. If I'm having these thoughts after one year, I'll never make it through my entirely undergraduate career alive. Most of all, if I go any of these places, I'll miss Colorado - the mountains, the skies, the whether, the cities and towns, the culture and people. But I'm a nomad at heart. I've lived four years in a row in Colorado now - longer than anywhere else since I was seven. I need to move on in this world.

Spring has come!

I officially declare yesterday the first day of spring. Not so much because it was really really warm, such days happen often during winter in Colorado, but because it felt like springtime. Thursday night it snowed, and yesterday it was more than 50 degrees, and I love Colorado. In the spring, the mood swings get slightly worse than usual. They happen just as often, but the snowstorms are bigger and the warm days are warmer.

My weather-dependent mood follows. I start running whenever I'm alone: running to class like one of those kids, running to my room in the middle of the night, running because I'm too impatient to walk. I get excited, bouncy, giddy; I sit still less than I usually do. I also get paranoid. On the other hand, I feel sadder and lonelier. Little things set me off (I was reading Kozol's Savage Inequalities yesterday, and I started crying, but then, that's a really sad book.

I'm so excited for spring.

PS. While on the Hop last night, we were having a conversation about spring and later seasons in general, and the entire bus participated. It made me so happy to see people actually talk to each other!

A rainy morning.

There's a true fall day outside my window. Rain has been falling on-an-off since before I opened my eyes, and puddles have collected in cracks and corners. Rumors of upcoming snowy nights spread faster than the common cold, and everyone seems somewhat unprepared for the weather.

This is truly a nice change of pace. My sweaters and jackets are rejoicing. Every morning when I opened the closet door, they held their breath, hoping I'd reach for them, but sighed with disappointed as I reached for a skirt once again. At last, their time has come. Not that my yawning skirts mind: they are ready for hibernation. It's a win-win situation.

I dressed in black and white this morning, matching the colorless weather, and went off to my early morning class. It was cloudy and sad, but I was much too busy being sleepy to even consider the possibility of rain. Thus, when 8:50 came about, and I had to walk to my 9-o'clock class, I had neither a hood nor the attitude to walk in the rain. Like most everyone else, I grimaced, hunched over, and walked quickly, silently cursing fall. One smiling stranger changed all that. A beautiful girl wearing a bright-colored rain jacket and a colorful knit hippie-style hat shouted the obvious to her friend across the field: "it's raining!" Normally, such a random and obnoxious exclamation would bring out the cynical critic in me, but there was so much joy in her voice, that I couldn't help but smile. "I'm so happy!" she shouted with a smile, and suddenly, I was happy, too. I smiled, straightened up, and saw the beauty in the gloomy morning.

Still, after my second class had ended, I was not about to make the ten-minute-walk back to my dorm in the rain. Instead, I curled up with a book by a window in the hallway and waited for the rain to slow down. The window was behind a staircase railing, and I sat in the window sill, feeling happy and cozy. It reminded me of my room at home: I have a big windowsill there, and my bodypillow made it a very comfy place to sit. Often, I'd sit there and read, glancing out the window at the leaves of the aspen that grew outside. After a while, the rain had stopped, and I went back to my room.

After lunch, I sat outside the library with a coffee, reading. As I read, the rays of the sun found their way through the clouds; my page was somewhat brighter, and my arms felt warmer. It was then that the rain - which had remained dormant since 10:15AM - restarted, leaving wavy polka-dots on my page. Not exactly a sun shower, but the sunniest shower there was all day.

The autumnal equinox is tomorrow at 21:18. Happy fall!