Alexithymia

In case any of you were a little worried after my "marcid" post - Hi Mom - I thought I'd give you few readers an update.

It was a hard day. For a lot of complicated, boring reasons, I thought I'd screwed up my classes and I wasn't going to qualify to go on my internship and I probably wouldn't graduate on time. It was a hectic couple of days, to say the least. But I had a nice, calming meeting with my adviser - perks of a small university, he knows me well enough to help chill out when I've over thought everything - and everything worked out more than ok. In fact, I'll be taking fewer classes next spring than I'd planned, so my crazy overloaded semester turned into a fairly easy one. The relief was palpable, as you can imagine!

So now I'm faced with the constant conversation:

"Are you getting excited about PRIME?"

"Ah, not exactly."

"Why not?"

"I mean, its a challenging experience. I'll be really out of my comfort zone, and living with people I don't know, away from my friends and family for seven months, all while my friends start our senior year without me."

"Oh yeah, of course. But its s exciting! Meeting new people, living in a big city, being more independent!"

"Yeah, it will be cool."

Of course, not every conversation sounds that way, but many of them follow that vein. As if I'm crazy to not be psyched about this experience. Don't get me wrong! I'm really grateful that my degree has such a cool opportunity to gain experience and make us more hire-able after graduation. It will be a huge time of growth and learning in my life, and I get to do it for college credit. Not every student has this chance.

This blog will probably hold a lot of my thoughts and reflections during PRIME, so it seems best to be honest before I go:

I'm nervous. I'm curious. But I've never been good with change or the unknown, and this might be the biggest unknown yet. Right now, I'm mostly resigned. I need to go. I cognitively know that amazing things will happen in the next seven months of my life. I'm going to grow and mature in ways that I can't even imagine yet. Everyone says PRIME students come back changed. I know it will be good.

But I just can't quite be excited yet. Soon, maybe, but not yet.




alexithymia
n. difficulty describing feelings to other people