Back to East Cobb

I feel like sometimes my best writing seems to happen when I am home.  The problem for me seems to be deciding what really is home.  Is home the place where you parents live?  Is it your dorm where you will stay during the school year?  Or maybe the office you feel like you “live in”.  I don’t have any real answers to these questions, but they seem to be good ones for me to pose to all of you.

I have my doubts sometimes about my life and how it will all work out.  My thoughts today are about where my life will bring me.  It seems like Hollywood has this effect on me.  I watch a film and suddenly I just have this feeling of uncertainty that seems to define me.  Nothing is 100% real, certain, or anything like that.

Today I am talking to you wondering more about my career.  Since my parents want to be able to move if need be, I have been boxing up things in my room that I don’t need.  I found a journal thing that my preschool teacher and mom helped me keep.  I wrote in it that when I grow up,”I want to be a builder because I want to build another New York City.”  To put this into perspective, at the time I was 4 years old at the time and I had just moved into a brand new house.  I am pretty sure I was also obsessed with Yankees at the time and New York City.  My friends in my class all put answers you would expect from 4 year olds.  2 policeman, 3 firefighters, 2 dentists (my preschool was at Temple Har Shalom so at least one of my classmates parents were a dentist), 1 lawyer (same sort of deal as dentist), 2 astronauts (well, an astronaut and a “spaceman” whatever that is) and then a couple that were kind of random (Teacher, baseball player, a ballet teacher, a babysitter, a teacher, a train conductor, an inventor (my best friend at the time’s response) and of course me the builder.  At the time I couldn’t get enough blocks, but I wasn’t very good at building anything.  I was lacking when it came to hand-eye coordination which was sort of a problem (you try building a block castle with a shaky hand).

It is sort of weird looking back at those days.  Looking at my handwriting from then, I realize not that much has changed.  My letters are a little smaller, but just as hard to read.  I am a 20 year old (that feels weird to say) who doesn’t know what he wants to do with his life and I am totally okay with it.  The other day I told myself I wanted to be a lobbyist, but who on earth knows if I could even do that?  Could go on the hill and preach to law makers on something I believe in and try to essentially by their vote for my belief (or for that matter, my client’s belief).  At this point it is all up in the air what I am going to do.

Anyways, lets end this with some questions for those of you who will actually read this:

  1. Are you having a great winter break?
  2. Where is home to you?
  3. What do you think I should do?

2 thoughts on “Back to East Cobb

  1. My winter break is going pretty swell! Snowboarding trip was cool, and now I get to just chill. What you should do, though, is not up to me or anybody else. That’s your choice.

    Home, though. That question is something I could write on and on about (which I already have done, before). However, in simplified terms, home is where you feel where your family and friends are. So you could have multiple homes, I guess.

  2. My winter break is fantastic! I get new glasses at the beginning of next week and midnight mass on the Christmas Vigil is at the end of that week! so lovely of an occasion. 🙂

    Home: Webster defines it as such:
    1. one’s place of residence.
    2. the social unit formed by a family.
    3. a familiar or usual setting.
    4. a place of origin.
    5. an establishment providing care to people with special needs.

    I would most definitely have to go with the last one. although “home” is very much all of the above definitions, it is the place in which your needs are met and in which you feel validated as a human being and as a productive member of the social unit (family) that I call a home. so in this vein, Ninety SIx is my home. Not only is my family domicile in this small town, but all of my high school memories of my formative years are as well. NS is the place in which I look for a job every summer and have been able to explore countless opportunities and career paths for the future. and not to mention, some of my best friends are here.

    What should you do in the future?
    first of all, let me say this: there is a real difference between a “job” and a “work.” the former is what pays the bills, and the latter is what you do because it fulfills your needs for satisfaction and all that fuzzy jazz.

    I feel that I cannot make that decision for you, like your friend Fender said, because I have, after all, known what I wanted to do since I was 11.

    But my suggestion is that you use your time at CofC to explore. talk to everyone!!! do some internships! get away from campus! the more varied an experience you have at CofC (and in life) the better your chances are of finding your ONE true calling.

    It is exactly like the sentiment expressed by Jasmine in “a whole new world.” a 100,000 things to see are really out there; the trick is that you just have to close your eyes and leap. and leave the map at home.

    and one more question: who will be your Aladdin?

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