Changes since high school

I've been dwelling lately on how much I've changed since high school.

I was thinking about the extent of how elastic personality can be, and I remember during my teenage years, I always thought everything can be written over and changed by sheer habituation (that's my parents view of child personality as well, to my discomfort). I used to see myself as so elastic to the point where personality was just a hat to try on and take off. Now I realize that it's because high school never allowed me reflection space or physical space to just grow and experiment. My parents' external force of focusing on school...etc and my drive to just get out of their life was too great for me to ever have considered what I would naturally be inclined to do. It's like forcing myself to go through all those god-damn science classes; by the end of high school, I still thought I could acclimate to the idea of becoming a doctor and liking it.

I felt so invincible then. The whole world of options was open and mine for the taking if I just tried hard enough. In college, I learned that that's not true; there are way more many factors that go into shaping a future life besides just trying hard. What really changed was college and space away from past friends and damaging family to finally finally give me my own breathing, thinking, living space. College, for me, was not as stressful as high school. The work load, although more, feels like play because I love what I'm learning. When I think back on the past few years here, I realized that the most important thing college has offered me was the time, and tools, to think about my own life. Humanities, especially non-grad school oriented humanities, is comparatively non-stressful and sometimes quite relaxing; classes and their knowledge have offered me the tools to think about my life through different lens: the historical, the cultural, the psychological. My own room, my own space, and staying up late at night to just think about myself, have finally paved way for a more natural, spontaneous flow of personality to take charge of my life instead of anything externally imposed.

From my own actions the past four years, I know I'm more of an observer than a doer. I take pleasure from being slightly off-center and being able to view and analyze action with a cooler perspective. It doesn't mean I don't enjoy the headiness of hot-headed action once in a while, but for the most part, yeah, I don't. I'm more and more turned off by any kind of social event beyond my close and dear relationships--and I haven't really found other people like me in this regards, which sometimes makes me question myself about being so abnormal about 'friendships'. I'm low-energied but highly organized. and I plan plan plan and get the utmost personal satisfaction by fulfilling my plans bit by bit (seriously, checking off my to-do list makes me smile bc I've accomplished what I've set out to do).

I have no sense of career ambition at all, except to hope that I find something that I can enjoy doing and learn from, but whatever that is, I know it's not as satisfying as my own little world of cultivating knowledge and hobbies and relationships with loved ones. Sadly, a career/job will always be second-best in terms of personal fulfillment. And I'm currently grappling with the ramifications of such a realization. I used to put all my happiness in searching for a perfect career, thinking that it will fulfill me in many aspects; but I know now that those aspects that I need fulfillment from: a sense of accomplishment, feeling loved, feeling needed, social interaction, meaningful work...can all be, and have been found, in other venues of my life. Where does that leave my job? It's sadly going to be second best no matter what...

I have a lot of interests (cooking, movies, fashion, home decor) but I'm against doing anything in the real world with them. It just feels wrong to subject such ideal hobbies and pleasures to the test and ultimate disillusionment of reality. So no, I won't become a cook or a writer or a scholar or a magazine editor or interior designer. Each field has its own practical real-world drawbacks and I don't want anything to taint my idealized world of pursuing these hobbies.

I'm out to make a self-imposed cozy hole that's getting smaller and smaller and more concrete. I want my own little universe full of love and little pleasures and contentment that nothing in the ever-changing, ever-challenging outside world can ever get in. I want to shut the world out and only let in what I want to let in.

And it doesn't get old. I've always wondered if I'd get bored with my little world or my hobbies or my small group of relations but it hasn't yet. I rejoice each day as I come back home because that's where I feel the most comfortable and relaxed. It's being at one with my environment to the point where I can melt into my bed and my beautiful curtains and my everyday cooking and coffeetable books; they are me, and I can be found in them. Every other public environment requires a certain formality or mask of tact that I'm just so tired of doning.

Anyway, I kinda just wanted to spell out for myself all these changes since high school. All that angst and energy have been released already through senior year of high school and early college. Now I'm a lazy-hazy homebody and lovin' it. I also would have never thought I'd like cooking that much either....but it's given me such joy!

I know myself better because NYC has been there for me. I'm the type of person to stay in and watch TV instead of going out into arguably the most vibrant, pulsing city in the world where all the energy and people are. Instead, I dream of the subsurbs and a nice neighborhood to take walks in at dusk. I used to question myself, like what's my problem when all the other people my age are still so energized...but now I see that it's finally the proof that my personality is no longer that elastic anymore--I've more or less discovered myself and I'm actively shutting out other possibilities of change.