Happy Wheatland

I attended Wheatland music festival (my first overnight festival) this weekend. It was a fantastic experience. Everyone was so happy and with all of the great weather and music, the joy was contagious. The group I went with was wonderful. It was like a cute little family with a broad age range. I was the youngest of the group at nineteen and then the oldest in our group was in his fifties. The whole festival is amazing, because it unites people of so many different generations. There are kids activities with lots of free-spirited kids, and there are many free-spirited souls well over sixty. Then there are the people in between who are free spirits for the weekend, because they are allowed to be, but it is clear they are getting ready to go home to stress and be drained of their joy when everyone packs up sadly on Sunday, saying goodbye and “Happy Wheatland” for one last time. It was all a fun, but my favorite memory is from Friday night. It had just down poured for a moment so we were all wet and a little chilly, but the sky was perfectly clear with the exception of a few light clouds that looked like smoke making interesting designs in the sky. An African drum group was playing and it was moving. Lisa and Rebecca hollered for me to join them on the dance floor. I have no idea how to dance to African drumbeats, but no one cares at Wheatland. I joined them on the dance floor where we jumped and danced freely. I warmed up to the point where I was sweating and I would take moments to look up and catch my breath. It was one of those rare moments where I think to myself, “This is life at its finest. I’m happy to be alive.” I had several of those this summer and I am truly thankful for that, because I went without those split seconds for far too long. I think that is why we live, for those split seconds of perfection and joy. They are so energizing and it gives us the hope to keep going until the next one. That’s what life’s about.

At Wheatland I talked with Rebecca about how she likes Michigan (She moved here from Connecticut in January). She talked about struggling with meeting new people and finding happiness. When she was telling me this, I felt like she was describing my exact struggle with moving away to college. It just reminded me what a hard time I have understanding loneliness, because if everyone feels it, even when they are so loved, then how can we feel alone? It is so strange, because we are all so similar. I think it’s easy to forget that with all of the fronts and masks people have.

Today it’s raining and I feel melancholy. I think it is because I didn’t sleep much this weekend and I came back to a lot of homework today. I also have this theory that things always balance themselves out. Whenever I have a great day I have this fear of a bad day coming up. I need to change my thought process; because when I have a bad day I am much less apt to think, “I bet I’m going to have a great day tomorrow.” It seems one-sided of me. I also noticed today how judgmental I am of myself. Some of the people from the group involved with the South Dakota project pointed that out to me and I thought they were being too gentle with me, but it’s true I am so hard on myself. I still have that need to be a Saint that was burned in my head somewhere along the line, which only leads to disappointment on a regular basis. It’s really self-centered of me. No one thinks about me that much to be judging everything I say. The people who do have plenty of issues of their own, but yet I still let their negative judgments dictate how I judge myself. It’s all about guilt. Guilt. GUILT. It’s such a useless emotion that seems to represent everything wrong with my life. I suppose it is good that I can pinpoint the root of my struggles. That might be better than many, but I feel like I should be able to control it now that I am so aware of it, but awareness does not make it easier. I feel like I matured so much in my ability to stop and say, “Okay, I am feeling guilty. Is this a valid reason for feeling bad about myself? Did I do anything harmful or hurtful to anyone? “ I would say 90% of the time the answer is no. I am not saying that I don’t do things to feel guilty about, but I know I feel far too much guilt for trivial things. It just reminds me of my immaturity when I can’t control it. I talked with lisa about this frustration with not being able to control problems I am aware of. I commented on how I could see flaws in people older than me and know what they needed to change, but that didn’t stop me from going through the same struggles. Knowing about them didn’t help me avoid them or make them any easier. She claimed that’s what compassion is: hearing other people’s struggles and understanding it could or will be you if it hasn’t already been you. I thought that was a very insightful statement. I don’t know that my summary of it does it justice, but it was probably the best definition of compassion I have heard, and it is also a reminder of compassion I need to show myself.

I am glad it has cooled off so I am no longer sweating in minimal clothing in my dorm room avoiding my hot laptop at all costs. I hope to blog a little more regularly now, but it does get busy up here. I have my first meeting for the Amnesty International club branch here at school tonight. I think I will be meeting more socially aware people, maybe even making