Run Run, As fast as you can

Today I was walking to one of my two jobs and I realized: I have two jobs. Then I realized, not only do I have two jobs, but I have two jobs, an internship, and am taking a class. Not only do I have two jobs, an internship, am taking a class, but it's summer. Summer. I thought that was supposed to be time off to, oh I don't know, relax.

How quickly I've realized that the word "relax" is not n the vocabulary of an East coaster, let alone the phrase "slow down." I love the East coast, but have I really turned into one of them? Why do we never stop moving?

Now, I'm sure two jobs, an internship, and a class is normal for plenty of people during the summer. I do like to keep myself busy, I've only met one other person that juggles as many activities as I do on a regular basis and does it well. But I'm all for taking a break as well. Walking from one job to the other this afternoon, I realized that this go-go-go mindset of the East coast is catching up to me, leading me to be my busy, excited, driven self 365 days of the year.

I'm 21-years-old and have had the privilege to live in three major (at least well-known) cities in my life: Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and London. I'm also lucky enough to have a dad that loves to travel, so I have been many places throughout the country and to other countries on my own time. I haven't quite found a place that is as non-stop as the East coast.

Pittsburgh isn't on the East coast? you might ask, or argue. (More likely argue.) No, it is not. Whether or not the location is, the attitude definitely isn't. I do concede that we Pittsburghers have an attitude much more similar to Philly than to NYC, but that's irrelevant for my argument. Things are laid back in Pittsburgh; we watch football and make steel. We're practically a bunch of hicks, West Virginia is only about 2 hours away after all.

I've decided that the East coast is so unique because it is the epitome of capitalism and competitiveness. This is enabled because it is part of the corporate world, and because travel is so simple. The ability to travel from D.C. to Boston to NYC all in one day for various business meetings in a short amount of time is clutch. Don't forget your staple trip to the Jersey/Maryland shore or the Cape. There is always a tight schedule to get from A to B, faster and better than your opponent so that you can achieve success quicker and more so than they can.

I can't claim that this is solely a big-city thing. I lived in London and didn't experience this competitiveness. I was actually surprised at how uncompetitive people were, almost not driven. But that's a post for a different day when I can explain myself better.

I can't claim it's an American thing. I also lived in Pittsburgh, where people were more willing to help you tackle the Cleveland Browns fan to the ground, rather than race you to him.

The East coast, quite a unique place. One that I've grown to love because of its opportunities, yet hate because its caused me to feel like my life is a quick blur in front of my eyes and I have to do everything I can to catch up.

Take me home

I was recently in Church, very holy of me I know, listening to a homily about coming home to God. It got me thinking about the word 'home' and our obsession with it. Everyone I know from college is overly proud of where they're from (including me); there are songs on the radio about home (Diddy is Comin Home); Catholic homilies are about home (enter Lazarus and Jesus); everyone is either frantic to get away from home, or eager to go home. What is so special about 'home' that has us crazy over it?

Some would say that the answer to this question is rather simple. Home is where we're from, who we are. For most of us, it is the residence of the majority of our life. We began at home.

This isn't true for everyone, however. Some of us don't have a home to speak of, a place where we began. It seems to me that our curiosity about who we are and our determination to define ourselves as people leads to our obsession with home.

We all want to understand ourselves, who we're supposed to be. How better to begin defining ourselves than to start with where we began? Home. It's the place that I ran to when I was playing basketball in the neighborhood and skinned my knee. It's the place that I ran from when eight-year-old me decided I wanted to run away to the shed in my backyard. It's the place that taught me values and life lessons; that physically stood around me when I believed those values to be crumbling and the life lessons to be worthless. My family comes from my home and comfort comes from my home. After all, there will never be anything the slightest bit comparable to the feeling of my home on Christmas Eve. (You know the feeling, twinkling tree lights and the soft glow of candles in the window.)

Everyone wants to find their place in the world and home, I think, is the place that we begin to look and return to in a struggle. Whether it is home itself, or the idea of home, the concept is the same. Home is who you are.

I guess that explains my blue collar attitude and the unique black and gold color of my blood...

Up to my ears in expectations

Very rarely do you see someone out in public eating by themselves. Maybe at the mall or at McDonald's it's a little more common, but not at restaurants like the one that I work at. This evening a petite, white-haired woman came into the restaurant and sat in the lounge for dinner by herself. My bus boy remarked how odd it was that she was alone, which got me to thinking, why is it unusual for someone to eat alone? Why do we have such an attraction to being in the company of others?

Of course, not everyone is that way. To this day I can't decide if I lean toward the more or less-social end of the spectrum. While I have many friends, I thoroughly value alone time and my own room. I tend to be loud in a group of people that I know, and quiet in a group that I'm unfamiliar with. This might not have anything to do with my social tendencies, but rather my shyness. Either way it's besides the point.

Thinking about it, everything is always grouped in twos, or some sort of group. Animals, flowers, toes... Are we inclined by human nature to form groups for comfort and safety? Or are we conditioned by our society to believe that we must never be alone?

I think the answer to this is a combination of both. We have an attraction to the company of others because it's human nature. Not only does safety and comfort come from numbers, but as social beings we love to talk about ourselves (I know I do) and talk to others for reassurance. Because of this tendency, I think there is a societal expectation in which we are expected to be social beings in order to be normal. Therefore, it's unusual to eat in a restaurant alone or to be 40 years old and single. We seem to impose the things we want for ourselves onto others. Maybe that woman in the restaurant needed a break from the chaos in her household and wanted to enjoy her Mandarin Chicken entree in peace.

Though we crave the attention and atmosphere of being in a group, you have to admit, it takes a good deal of confidence to go to a restaurant and eat alone. 

Watch out for me next week having dinner by myself in a restaurant near by, but don't join me, I like my alone time.

You earned the right to be different

For as long as I can remember, I've always defined myself as being different. I realize now that this started in seventh grade, when I was an awkward, lanky pre-teen with glasses, braces, frizzy hair, and big eyebrows (think Mia from Princess Diaries, pre-princess makeover). The 'popular kids' (aka boys basketball and girls cheerleading) had their fair share of laughs at the expense of me and my friends, and often enough I wished that I looked like and acted like them.

To drive the point home, I know that I was seriously awkward at this age because a month ago I was putting together a slide show of pictures for my younger sister's high school graduation and included a picture of our family that showed 13-year-old me drinking a smoothie with my sister on the beach. My mom suggested I pick a different picture because, as she pointed out, there exist more attractive pictures of me.

Though I looked quite odd at that age, and probably acted just as odd, I was fairly happy with myself. (Note: I was not happy when my parents told me I couldn't shave my legs until I was a teenager, but at least I talked them into letting me do it during the summer before seventh grade.) These days, I'd like to believe I'm a little less awkward and a little more attractive, but it also concerns me to think that while I'm no longer criticized for having furry eyebrows and shiny metal braces, there were and continue to be children out there that are criticized for things they will not 'grow out of,' such as their skin color or family background. While I looked at the pictures of my pre-teen self I wondered, why exactly do we ridicule others for being different from us?

I discovered today at work that it seemed as if I already knew the answer to this question, though I forgot it while at school this spring because at Villanova, I'm not different.

I've mentioned before that I'm a waitress, well paying for an LSAT class forces me to be a workaholic and have two jobs this summer. Today at my other job in the school cafeteria, my boss for the day identified other employees to me either by hair color or race. She addressed one as, 'the black guy with the beard,' one as, 'the Indian with the backwards hat,' and the other as, 'the girl with the long brown hair.'

That got me to thinking about my time abroad in the fall. Besides the cars driving on the opposite side of the road, one of the most shocking things about London was how different the British are from Americans, a point that they make sure to establish within hours of meeting you.

In my flat, I lived with two other Americans, three British kids, one Chinese kid, and one eastern European, (I never could quite understand what his name was or where he was from, heavy accent).

I immediately bonded with the Americans because they were 'the same' as me. I had naively gone to England thinking that the culture shock would be close to non-existant and the British were generally similar to Americans, mainly because of the language.

I soon discovered that the British made a point to establish every difference between us, and them. Their accent (which was correct, ours was wrong), their culture, their schooling system, their government, their clothing, the list goes on and on. I'm assuming it has something to do with President George W. Bush, but the British kids made it quite obvious that they did not like drawing any similarities between us and them.

My flatmates, and their rude friends who found Americans downright disgusting, made me understand that they were different from Americans. They were British.

While I was at work today, I was quickly reminded of how easily people point out how people are different from one another. Skin color, hair color, clothing, accent, basically anything. And really, I understand that it's because we define ourselves by how we are different from others. That's the beautiful thing about this world after all. If we were all the same, how would we get anything accomplished? I mean, I'm obviously a beautiful, talented young woman, but there are things that I cannot do. (Math, for example.) Yes, that's something internal, not relating to appearance, but as I established in my last post, appearance is how we present ourselves to the world.

Our differences are our identifiable characteristics and looking back at the pictures of my awkward self, I realized that that's why I've always defined myself as different. It's no fun being like everybody else.

Life is more interesting as a clumsy, frizzy-haired brunette with square maroon glasses.

Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder

In my life, I've often wondered why exactly people are so self-obsessed, particularly with their image. I know I'm attractive, maybe that's why I'm in love with myself. It may sound conceited, but I don't really care, you can't argue with the truth. Anyway, that's besides the point. The point is, why are we so obsessed?

I recently start waitressing at a bar-restaurant near my new house near school. I live in a rather upper-class area, and their is a particular stereotype of the people that are native to this area. To put it simply, they're the country club type. I've had my share of experience with this type, as I lifeguarded at a country club for the previous two summers, and there is are two molds for these types of people.

Generally, the father is some sort of successful professional [insert businessman, lawyer, doctor, entrepreneur, etc] married to a trophy wife with the perfect children. Hopefully the mother cares enough about her children to actually care for them, but sometimes she cares more about herself than about them, as seen in her size 2 toned body.

The second mold, and the one that I prefer, is the successful father with the perfect children, but also involves a motivated, working mother that has a career of her own. I actually like this type of woman a lot; she graduated from college with the intent of working, not with the intent of finding a husband, but also expects to have a the perfect family and live in a beautiful large home. It was a woman like this that encouraged me to pursue my budding interest in law school last summer.

Every Friday night, the restaurant that I work at has a dance party for these country club types, let's call them Shore Goers, over the ago of fifty. It was at the third dance party that I worked at last week that I had an enlightened moment as to why we are so obsessed with our image.

A tan, thin woman donning a fitted purple knee-length dress approached me, fanning herself with a red and white paper fan. She leaned against the table that I stood next to, waiting for me to talk to her, about herself of course.

Suzanne, as I found out, was a 60-year-old widow of seven years who came to the restaurant every Friday night. Dancing was her exercise she said. She had two children and six grandchildren, and while her oldest son often pleaded with her to babysit, she had a life of her own, as she said.

"You look great," I told her. "I wouldn't believe you were sixty unless you told me yourself." Though my compliment was slightly facetious, it was mostly genuine.

"I know I look great," she responded. I must have looked taken aback because she said, "I know I'm vain. I always have been. My appearance means everything to me. It's who I am to the rest of the world. It's how people see you."

With that, Suzanne spotted an older gentleman in a creamsicle colored button down and dashed across the dance floor in his direction, never giving me a second thought.

While I watched the rest of the dance party that night, including Suzanne flaunt her size 4 fit body in leopard print pumps, I realized that she was right.

In most ways, at least.

A person's appearance is how he or she represents themselves to the outside world. Though we may not boast it, we all know that first impressions mean a great deal and sweeping judgments are made as a result of appearances. Though I didn't agree with Suzanne's neglect of her grandchildren for her 'life of her own,' I did admire her confidence. The fact that Suzanne was confident about being a 60-year-old widow and grandmother, with a bangin' body, made me wonder, why shouldn't she show it off?

I got to thinking ... I've spent 21 years in this body, might as well be proud of it.