"I Gave Her My Best Kiss She Gave It Back Again"

I retook the GRE this morning up in Oklahoma City. It's been almost two years since the last time I took it, back on December 26, 2001. At 8:00 in the morning. Eight o'clock in the morning the day after Christmas is a hell of a time to be taking the GRE. Noon on Halloween is much better.

I've basically spent the day in isolation. Since I took the GRE this morning instead of working, I didn't see anyone from work (including coworkers and athletes). I've seen people in the bank, the GRE testing facility, and on the road, but I really haven't had any conversations with anyone. I haven't smiled at anyone today, though I did laugh at some of the stuff my father said over the telephone earlier this evening. But a phone conversation just isn't the same. All the friends I'd have hung out with this evening had prior engagements--either dinners, get togethers with other people, in Arkansas or some other distant state, or attending parties I wasn't invited to or wouldn't be comfortable at. So it's another solo Halloween, just as last year was. That's okay, though--I watched anime instead, and now I'm going to go work on grad school apps (almost got 'em done, thankfully).

The sad thing is, I really need to sort of prepare myself to deal with a lot of isolation. Come May, I graduate from OU. Come August, I'll (hopefully) be attending a university in some other state: either Missouri, Virginia, Ohio, or Wisconsin. I don't really know many people in any of them (I know one person in Missouri, and a few in Virginia, but the person I know in Missouri doesn't live anywhere near St. Louis, and I'm not even sure if the school in Virginia would enable me to pursue my teaching goals). The fact of the matter is, I'm going to be heading off for parts basically unknown in less than a year. Not only that, my discipline is such that I probably won't encounter many people on a social basis. Sure, I'll see people in classes, I'll see people in whatever apartment complex I live in, and I'm sure I'll even get to know a couple of them. But will I be able to form the bonds I have at Ozarks, or even here at OU? The only reason I know most of the people I know here is because I met them through an old high school friend or I already knew them (mostly because they were former Ozarks students like myself). I've only met one person here who is completely unconnected to anyone else I knew prior to coming here, and I work with him. We were sort of thrown into a situation where we had to interact, and it just so happened that we got along and there were circumstances allowing us to just sit around and chat aimlessly for hours, discovering we had quite a bit in common (and that I amused him, something I apparently do quite well for many people).

The fact is, I don't really make friends that easily. It's not that I'm not a friendly, easy-going person, or difficult to like, or anything like that. Part of it is that I'm an introvert, and my basic response to meeting new people is to either withdraw into my shell or make quiet, wry comments until the person laughs. So far, I've basically gotten by on the skin of my teeth and by dint of the fact that several of the people I've met are extroverts. I can't always rely on either factor.

And as I said, my discipline is one which lends itself to isolation. We research, we study, we read, we attend class, we write papers. Historians are actually quite boring people. We don't have much time for socializing, and I've noticed that virtually every other history grad student around here is rather...dour. Somber. Maybe they're just really focused on their discipline, I dunno. But they strike me as rather self-absorbed, unaware that there's a world around them, and too wrapped up in making sure they know everything they can about history that they don't care if they have friends or not. I like history, but I want something outside of it for when I get tired or bored of battles, names, dates, and religious controversy involving people who died three or four hundred years ago. I want living people with energy and life in them.

I guess what it all really boils down to is that I'm afraid to move on, afraid to change. If I can stay in the situation I'm in, where I'm familiar with it and comfortable, then I can continue to feel safe and secure. I can remain happy. But if I change that situation, if I move to a new place where I'm unfamiliar with my surroundings and with the people, there's always the chance I won't be happy there, that I'll be very unhappy. Sure, it's a pretty stupid and irrational reason to not want to face change, to not take a risk, but no one ever said irrational fears would make sense. That would make them rational, and a rational irrational fear is nonsensical, thus being very irrational in and of itself. But I digress.

Ultimately, I think what I really want to do is take all my friends with me, drag them along wherever I go like a security blanket while I suck on my thumb. I know I can't do that, and that even though we'll be in different places we'll still be friends, it doesn't make dealing with it any easier, I guess.

~chaos cricket

Song of the Moment: Tom Petty, "Crawling back to you"