Great Expectations.

No, I'm not talking about the novel. Dear lord, I'm not THAT pretentious. (yet.)

So, school hath started. I find myself struggling in a few ways with it...mostly in that my great expectations (see? see what I did there? xD) haven't exactly been met.

I don't particularly know WHAT my expectations were, to be honest. I don't know if I expected to find a group of like-minded people to spend time with. I don't know if I expected to roll in there and be intelligent and experienced enough to not have to work. (Which in itself sounds pretentious, but...to be frank, this has been the case in most of my academic career.) That I would begin to feel confident and useful in my endeavors again. I think these were hopes, not expectations.

Well, whatever they were, they're pretty unfulfilled at this point.

That's not to say that my experience thus far has been completely miserable. It's been fine. I go to class, I take my notes, I leave. I do my homework, blow my brains out trying to keep up with intense amounts of reading in five classes, work my twenty five hours, and do laundry on Sundays.

I just...I don't know. My heart's not in it.

I feel like Jane Goodall observing the apes when I'm on campus. I look around and just feel completely isolated from the people there. I feel like I would enjoy getting to know someone, anyone, but...I've forgotten how to speak their language. I've forgotten how the hell these people interact....if I ever really knew in the first place. Given my track record, I haven't really made many friends from college, exclusively. (I actually can only think of two people.) Most of my friends I've made in other settings. I don't know what this means, aside from my not being extremely social in general on campuses.

But it's not even just that...I've tried connecting with people, and somehow, someway, I'm OLD. How the hell did that happen?! I'm fucking 25. The only person who has talked to me past conversation one and remembers who the hell I am is a middle aged lady finishing her degree because her children are now grown and she has time. Like...seriously? Am I that out of touch in a year that I don't know how to communicate with these people?!

I understand that the majority of them are 19, 20. But I have friends that are that age, and I interact and connect with them just fine. And on one hand, I'm almost sort of flattered that I'm too "mature" for them. I'm a grownup, in ways that they're not. At the same time...feeling like a social outcast because of it is unfortunate and awkward.

I also wonder how much of it is a regional cultural thing. I mean...straight up, I'm different than the majority of people attending school there. I'm from out of state. I'm older than your typical undergrad. I don't have a lot of the previous ties that bring those kids together. I'm also just...different. I've always been different, in that "air quotes" kind of way, which is usually synonymous with weird, freak, outsider...blah blah blah. High school I had very few *real* friends...mostly groups that I just sort of...awkwardly existed on the fringe of. I realize that I don't *look* like your typical 25 year old, that I don't have a lot of the same interests, beliefs...I don't know. I just feel uncomfortable being there, which is stupid, because in reality, it's not like I'm being tortured or teased or anything of the sort...I don't know.

It's me. For all I know, it's all in my head, and it's perfectly normal, and I'm just weirded out because it's new and foreign.



Whatever. I have to get ready for class. woo.