iLiza's eyes

I'm in an office for spring break and that doesn't feel weird to me.

I ran into an old friend a couple days ago. We crossed pathes in the local drug store-- I was on my way out and she was breezing in to pick up something. I was leaving for New York in the evening, she was coming back from Mexico or the Bahamas or Puerto Rico or some hot place that had caused her skin to brown slightly, that had allowed her hair to blonde even more from a natural sun bleach.

To be honest, the encounter was awkward, which was unfortunate because I really like that old friend. But I was on my way out of the store, I was in a rush to get my errands done, see my brother and head back to a city that makes my skin tingle, that isn't afraid to keep me up all night or challenge me to inch alittle closer to the edge. When I left the pharmacy, I thought that it was nice to see her, I felt a pang for what used to be, the friendships I used to have, and then I stepped on a train and walked out into my new life: the life where I don't go to Cancun for spring break, but sit in and office and make money and write about the past and read for the present and try to climb the solid ground that will lead me to the future where I fight for children dying of AIDS in Africa and write books about women's rights.

It's my spring break this week. Campus is empty, the office is empty, there are no lines at dining halls, the general student pulse is dull. And yet, the vast majority of my friends are in the city-- my friends are doing what I am doing. They are working and saving and flourishing here-- they are not naked in Cancun or wasted in Miami. And that's interesting for me; that's telling for me.

I don't wish to judge people. I don't wish to say that "spring breakers" are bad people or make bad decisions. My point is not that going on a trip like that is a bad choice. Hardly. It's actually a choice that a part of me wishes I had the capability to make. Perhaps unfortunately, I have not made that choice and I know that I never will. No-- I will do my drinking at Women's History Month Happy Hours and Karaoke parties on St. Marks. I'll spend my Saturdays talking philosophy on my roof under the guise of the Empire State Building and I will spend my spring break in an office, watching New York Times video clips about the genocide in Sudan and driving myself mad with my inability to do something just yet.

Maybe that makes me not fun. Maybe it ages me 10 years. Maybe it keeps me pale and away from the sun and just a little distant from people my own age, from other college students in America. But I'd like to think that one day I'll look back at my week in the office and be thankful for it-- thankful for the money or the time to catch up on work and writing. Or that someone will look back at my sober old-lady week and smile...or else just make fun of me.

posted by iliza @ 12:42 PM