What No One Wants To Know

No one wants to believe this, because it is a universal truth that everyone has made bad choices in the past.

Now, I’m not one for regret, I believe that every decision that I have made has created the person who sits here writing this blog. But I also believe that sometimes the only silver lining to a situation is that you’ll never, ever, ever repeat it. 

But there are times when you won’t be able to avoid repeating the past, whether it’s a good repetition or a bad one. Luckily for me, my revelation came as a neutral one today. 

As I sat looking at my planner, freaking out about graduating in a year, finding out what I’m going to do with my future, and filling my schedule for this week with work and activities to make me forget about work, I stumbled across an event that made me stop.
And think.
And laugh.
And wonder what the fuck it meant for me.

What is this amazing event you ask? Why it’s a note jotted down in my purple and green elephant planner, at the very bottom of “Thursday, July 17.” I wrote it there myself two days ago without a thought, and now it’s the reason for an entire “I’ll pretend to be deep” blog entry.

It says: Midnight Premiere with Caitlin and Jessica.

Bam. Is that as dramatic as you anticipated? Maybe not. Maybe you don’t understand. I’ll explain.

When I was a senior in high school, in a suburb of Dallas called Mesquite, I had two very good friends.

One – Jessica Sue – who was a year older than me, already in college, with a boyfriend I adored (who is now a fiancee I STILL adore), and the person that I ran to for at least a level headed approach if not the answer to all things big and small.

Two – Caitlin (Janell, though I never called her that. Her nickname was far more scandalous than Jessi’s) – who was in my grade, who “worked” with me in choir, and who tooled around with me to all activities. The three of us got along fairly well, and I can say with certainty that I have been to more than one midnight premiere with both of them.

And if you have no clue who I am, then I’m sure you’re all…so you’re still friends with them, so what? And I am still friends with them. But they’re not the Jessica and Caitlin that I’m going to the movie with. No, this Jessica and Caitlin are two amazing girls that I met in college, and to an extent, they fill the same roles during this – my senior year of college – that my friends my senior year high school did.

Jessica has spent a huge amount of time listening to me talk about the rough time I’m having sticking to what I want, trying to figure out if it IS what I want, and all that jazz. The main difference is that there’s no crazy boyfriend around (but really, how could there be another Chad?). That and the fact that I might be a little looser lipped this time around thanks to my turning 21. She’s still a year older than me, and she’s also more level-headed most of the time. Most of the time. 

Caitlin is Texas Caitlin to an extreme, from her love of penguins to her middle name to the fact that she is the most entertaining person in my everyday life. But I think that the extremity is not because she embodies all of these things so much more than Texas Caitlin, but because I’m living with her, and therefore everything is a little more heightened. She puts up with my craziness, and sometimes people think of us as one unit – just like people did to Texas Caitlin and I in high school.

So here I am, staring at my planner, and realizing that the planner could belong to me four years ago. I mean, the stuff I have written in there – look up scholarships, read manuscripts (my friends’ in high school), work on applications(undergrad vs. job, corps, and grad), send flowers, spa time (this has been upgraded from pedicure time, as Jessi Sue will remember), dinner dates, and midnight movies (Batman instead of Harry Potter this summer).

And it’s convenient, because I realized that while I’ve been panicking and freaking out about how I don’t know who I am anymore, the answer is in my lap. I’m the same person that I always have been, spelled out in my planner. I feel like I’ve changed, and some things have, but it’s okay. I haven’t lost myself. 

I realize that now, if all four of you are reading this, you’re like:
What. The. Fuck, Erin.
I am not an inter-changeable person.

And you’re not. I love you all for very different reasons, and you’re only the same people in the spaces that you fill in my life. But you fill those spaces in different ways. And maybe I should stop talking about spaces being filled because it’s starting to sound a little…you know…but you know what I mean. I can’t trade any of you in for another because it’d break my heart.

I’m just lucky, now that I have more than one person that I can turn to when I need you. And yet, isn’t it strange that I draw similar people to me? I mean, how many people attend Mizzou that AREN’T named Caitlin or Jessica and who AREN’T crazy like me? Or at least who AREN’T crazy enough to put up with me?

I remember thinking that I would go to college and be friends with all these journalists and we would talk about how important the media is to the world, and our dreams for the future. But then I got here and realized that the picture I had in my head happens for other people, but not for me. Now, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I wouldn’t trade the friends I have(old and new) for anything in the world. Because in a weird, dysfunctional way, they make my life a little easier. 

I suppose what I’m saying is that there’s more truth than I realized to the adage: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Because you cannot avoid repeating the past.