Transitional periods and understanding yourself
As I peer over the edge of my second-last semester of my undergraduate degree, and look down at the pile of work I’ve got cut out for me, I’m still not quite sure what to think or where to go afterwards. I’ve got options, sure – grad school, publishing, teaching abroad, but I suppose getting a move on those things is always the hardest part. For the approaching New Year and semester, I thought I’d use this final issue’s editorial space to share some thoughts about growth, time, and developing a sense of self.
I’ve had a great time here in Guelph, a time full of ups and downs. This last year or so has particularly been a rip. Having done my obligatory Top 10 album list for the year, it prompted me to reflect on what I was listening to, old and new, at any particular time since January. It’s interesting, because my thoughts on how I engage with music are always in flux, and I don’t really have any concrete agenda or point of reference. Since it’s been a bit of a personally and globally tumultuous year, and I try to further understand myself through art/music/etc., my perspective on things has been kind of all over the place. It seems like personal chaos is even more difficult to manage when it seems like the world is going insane before your eyes.
So, it was a tough list to make, no doubt, but whether or not you take the year’s end as mere symbolic gesture or a truly transformative thing, doing something like that at the year’s end really does make you evaluate yourself and how you have changed in a year, for better or for worse.
In the past 11 months, I’ve been happy, hurt, healed, thrilled, and afraid, to extremes I had never experienced before. I guess it’s all a part of growing older, but I’ve thought that, in a university setting, they can be so defining to how you develop as a person. Since I study English literature, and that takes me to all kinds of facets of thinking, the evaluation of my own sense of self and place is nothing if not consistent. On top of this, my creative endeavours warrant probing further into that, and I’m beginning to take those more seriously and see them through.
The hardest part is balancing things that seem to have no clear boundary. Studying humanities and working in a creative vein has me constantly intervening my sense of self within the things I engage with in academics, literature, music, and art. The distinctions between my artistic career, personal life, school career, and working here at The Ontarion, have been pretty mixed ones as of late. And, since I aim to continue in this line of work to some capacity, I guess I’d better get used to that. But it gets exhausting sometimes, because creative work forces you to evaluate yourself and your sense of place consistently, usually in a number of manners and methods that all contribute to your own distinctive perception of your life.
Of all things, I’ve started taking poetry more seriously since I’ve studied English here. I like doing it, I’ve come to appreciate its depths, and I try to develop my own style of probing those depths. It’s certainly not for everyone, but it’s for me. It’s about drawing from a well of experiences, ideas, memories, and discovering things about yourself and the spaces and people around you. It’s that magical moment when you read a passage that you connect with, either instantaneously or over time, or when you write something that you’re really happy with (then don’t even want to look at a week later). You need to work to understand and engage with it.
I feel that, in studying arts at least, you can apply critical understanding to your own work and passions, and that legitimizes it, in a way, for yourself. You begin to read into your own place in the world, because words and ideas are formative of experience. And looking back on it, I never thought I’d be as invested in them as I am now.
The more writing/studying literature forces me to study myself and my past – especially at this crucial, transitional stage in my life – I realize quite how much I have changed since, say, towards the end of high school and my first year at a different university. I was really socially awkward (still am sometimes), uncomfortable with myself, and filled with self-loathing, and I had plenty of vague ideas and no way to really translate them. I was never sure what group I “fit into,” and nobody could ever give me a straight answer. Maybe I was always too afraid to ask.
So I dropped out, moved back home, worked for a few years, and pondered where to go next – even considering joining the coast guard at some point. I saw my initial dropping out as a big mistake for a while, but I began to realize that my “sabbatical” (my parents weren’t too crazy about my calling it that) was invaluable to me, because I was able to do some growth of my own before taking a vital step forward after a disappointing step back. I became more social, lost some weight, pinned down a sense of style, got to know myself better, and moved on when I felt ready. I kicked myself for not taking a year off high school, but looking back, I wish I would have.
My time in Guelph has been marked by incredible highs and lows. I’ll always remember Hillside, cottages, the incredibly vibrant and will-be age-defining arts scene, the love, the breakup, the drinking too much, the great stuff I’ve read, and the incredible friends, peers, and colleagues I’ve made here. The good, the bad, and the weird, they all contribute to growth in some degree, and I guess any learning experience is worth it.
I’m not quite sure what I’ll do differently in the New Year. I’ve got plenty of ideas, but moving on them is the tricky part as always. Maybe I’ll try and be less apathetic about some things. Maybe I’ll try and feel more happy and comfortable alone. At any rate, I feel like it’s going to be another time like when I was between schools – a time where I’ll need to further consider how to go about taking the next step
So, I guess if I’m to give any actual advice in this editorial, it’s to take advantage of the liminal space you find yourself in. Because, you may be there more often than not, and for longer than you intended to be. You have a lot to mine from yourself, and tons to do with it, so learn the most you can.
Happy holidays, and thanks for reading all semester!