making space

At the moment, I am struggling with a dilemma. When I lived in Athens, my life was much different than it is now. When I moved to Augusta, my life changed yet again. A huge change occurred when I moved to Boulder. And now that I am a grad student in Boulder, shocker it is transforming another time.

And I have noticed throughout each transition that there is one commonality: there are facets of my personality which get the opportunity to be expressed more greatly than others during each of these periods of time. When I lived in Athens, my life as an undergraduate student was relatively carefree. I was in school, on my nursing path, working at Five and Ten on the weekends, meeting a ton of new people, and having tons of time to explore what I loved and do what I enjoyed. When I moved to Augusta, my priorities changed. It wasn't necessarily about having a ton of time for me anymore, my life was school. It was IV's, and bed baths, conversations with patients, SOAP notes (look that up), all white shoes, and clinicals. During my two years there, I did yes have the opportunity to play my sports, but honestly I was so unhappy in Augusta, that I spent my weekends back and forth between there and Athens, to find some shred of a life that I loved. (The only joys Augusta really brought me were a small handful of people and intramural soccer and flag football).

Eager for change, I moved to Boulder. Then my life became about outdoors and filler jobs. It was different for me, because I wasn't consumed by school all of a sudden and I did have more free time, but some daily pleasures that I loved from home (relaxation in the sun with sweet tea, humidity, knitting with my mom and her friends, etc) I didn't have. And I found that the face of Greer was changing. Personality traits of mine were emerging and I realized that I had such a passion for outdoors. That I feel was under the surface for so long just didn't have the chance to be expressed. But in a sense, I left behind so much of the Southern Greer. There are so many small blips of who I was that slowly were hidden.

And then I entered into school, and that is when this whole awareness really came to my mind. My life right now is a ping pong game. I am bouncing constantly between school and its obligations, work and its responsibilities, and social engagements. I am not complaining, but yet again...change. But for the first time, I was sitting with a friend realizing that I don't knit anymore. I don't make sweet tea or granola like I used to. I don't wear crazy socks when the mood strikes me (that is a weird example I know), but it is just a way to explain that many of the small facets that make up Madeline Greer Van Dyck have in some way or another fallen through the cracks.

So as I write this blog, I am listening to Frank Sinatra. REALLY LOUD. And that is something that I used to always do. I am going to take my basket of really weird hats and put them back in my car where they used to be (and depending on what mood I'm in, I'll wear the appropriate hat while I'm driving), I am going to go to the yarn store and make mittens. I am going to go buy oats and make my granola. I am going to hook another rug. I am going to do paint by numbers. I am going to journal by the river. I am going to write to my grandmother. I am going to bring the South back to me.

And this blog is an opportunity for me to tell you that no matter where we are in our lives, we are changing. We are evolving daily. But that evolution doesn't mean that elements of your personality should fall by the way side. It is a chance for incorporation of the old and new. Bring back to yourself what you feel has gotten swept under the rug. Change is great, and change is where I am in my life, but remember the old. I want to make space for all of me.