1) yesterday at babysitting, after i dropped off her brothers at soccer practice, it was just brynn and me, working together on a book she was making. she was recopying the main characters when i heard the pencil hit the table & she let out a heavy sigh, sprinted up the stairs and collapsed on the attic couch, crying, it doesn't look right. i can't draw. i can't make a book. i can't do anything right. it took a little while for her to calm down, but together, we cut out favorites from both pages and i created a backdrop so we could neatly paste them on top. slowly, she began to smile, talk rapidly, remember how to be satisfied with herself, trust me.

but what mattered more so than coming to a solution was the way my mind responded to her actions. the way i listened to the things she was saying, the illogical logic, the hyperbolic frustrations - because i understood completely. i was that same child, prone to anxiety when one stray pencil mark messed up a drawing. and i'm still that girl, who hates the way a single B throws off the symmetry of what could be a 4.0, who equates minor mistakes with total failure, who attributes any lack of flawlessness with something being fundamentally wrong with me. but im finally starting to learn how to relax and just let things be. because you can't control everything.

(2) yesterday was spent in job training. i'm an act/sat tutor now, but all that i got from those two blocks of hours were a few annecdotes about study smart and the realization that being underchallenged makes me stircrazy. i made my coworker allie do stretches with me in the hallway during our lunch break. i raised my hand eagerly to steal every question during jeporday. i felt like i was back in high school, wide eyed and quirky mainly because i was bored out of my mind. intelligence translates well on standardized tests. i'm articulate. i can get good grades. but to me, it's most advantageous manifestation has been the way i just get things (especially in social situations), the way my mind naturally skims and skips ahead without ever sacrificing comprehension, the way the only time i have to ever ask a question is if i'm blantently distracted and not even half paying attention. i remember in 4th grade my teacher was talking as we walked in twos down the hall.

and i was whispering to lauren who was walking alongside me. and mrs. mcdonald snapped and asked me to please repeat what she had just said to the class, to challenge that i had been listening. i hadn't really, but i still repeated it exactly back, much to her frustration and my self-satisfaction, lol. i think i tend to sell myself a little short and i'm afraid that i'll wind up at a job where day in and day out i'll be making up little mental games to keep myself engaged. i feel like i initially gravitated towards education mainly because the facts alone were enough. i can be patient when i'm explaining things, but i find it impossible to be patient when people take too long to explain them to me. which is i guess why auburn has been a blessing, the classes just glossing over the material, leaving me with plenty of blanks to fill in. i just wish i felt like there was somewhere to go where my mind would be an asset, where i wouldn't have to worry that the context will make me regress to high school antics just to pass the time.

(3) i went to volleyball intramurals tonight. every time i turned around there was another face, subtly changed, that i hadn't realized i couldn't wait to see. with each hug, i slowly began counting the days till practice starts again, till these people make up my afternoons day in and day out. every girl on my team last year is coming back for more. it's stretching the program to its limits, but truthfully, i think it's the best compliment a coach can get. so many of them asked me if our team would stay the same, just tugged a year up to the jv level. and as much as i want it to, there's still the girls that improved a little more than the rest, that the varsity coach has his eye on. there's the lagging juniors from last year, the off chance skilled freshman, the dynamics of passing time. so i don't know if we'll ever recreate the exact dynamic we had last year. if anything, i hope to improve upon it & make this year a little better.

show every girl that yet again they can have fun and figure out exactly what is their personal best. i guess i have this hope because this time last year i didn't know who any of them were. this time last year, i had the bittersweet memories of my first year, all mixed up with indifference and a few broken bones. but this year, i have a spring i'll always remember to look back on, i have the advantage of not having to spend the first few days memorizing names, i know whose tendencies are defensive and who is a born server. i don't have to recruit anyone else or persuade them to take me seriously. most importantly, i've already convinced them all that this is worth their time. and there were little things, like the way they remembered my boyfriend's name, like the comfort i felt sitting on the gym floor, like the laughter that rises from a group of sixteen year old girls. it's just here that i belong.