Geography, My Love, My Enemy, My Friend

We speak of how the ivy league death machine eats up so many promising young souls. Well, I think I was eaten years ago. Now I am devoured. I have lived my entire life aiming for that magical school, UC Berkeley, Stanford, xyz, but what if I don't get in? And even if I do get accepted, how am I supposed to afford the $200,000 at least in tuition, room and board for 4 years. I know I am overthinking a bit, but I have lived my whole life for the set plan.

Grades. Scores. College name.

In the geography bee, you don't really matter unless you make it on TV, at least in my opinion.
People tell you to follow your dreams, everyone except my parents. And in rebellion, I did follow my dream of being on television for those 15 minutes of fame in which I answered six questions of geography. I believed then that I was extraordinary. I believed I was special. Yet at the same time I felt insecure. I always yearned for more accomplishment.
So I got perfect grades. So I did everything I am supposed to do. I signed up for difficult classes. I made friends with the overachieving crowd. I looked for college a year ahead of schedule.

But then life became so much more complicated. Things like friendships. Love. Internet. APs that weren't so easy. Leadership. Actual A minuses. Money. REALITY fell upon me.

Real life is not Kumon. You cannot achieve some magnificent level and just go up and up and up. We don't live in the linear. But I have lived my entire life like a machine for so many years, basically all my adolescence. I achieved that superior level at one point, seventh grade.

NOW WHAT?

Every other geo bee winner goes on to accomplish great things. 4.0s; Harvard; Scholarships. The system of achievement keeps working for them. They go from level A, to B, to K, to Z, and forever on on this path, or so it seems. I really cannot assume, but my life seems so pathetic compared to all those crazed geography extraordinaires.

I can't get a National Merit Scholarship. I can't get a great SAT score. I still haven't heard from the Honors college at UW, unlike most of my other friends. I can't seem to score any random scholarships like everyone else.

When you live your entire life expecting this system of success, hard work, and more success to just fall into place, it is crazy to think that everything is much more complex. I used to always believe that GPA and SAT and college name were the only thing that mattered. I used to always believe that those first impressions were what mattered. I always told people when I met them about my geography bee win. It's the only thing I have ever really done that I have deemed worthy.

Yet I find it to be the most trivial of things I have done in my life, my real life. My friendships, my leadership experiences, my frigid winter days planting trees, my conversations with homeless men, my huge mistakes, are the things that have really made me me. But identity is so unclear. I always imagined my group of friends being some stereotypical high school drama. But every person is so much deeper and complicated than that. I can't just call one person artsy, and another super-genius. Everyone is so unique and diverse.

I look at my image from the newspaper article in the King County Journal or the Seattle Times. I made the front cover of the King County Journal for goodness sake.
Then I saw the bed and the wall and the arrogant smirk on my face. I still lived in my imaginary world back then, and I still do sometimes now. But I feel so much more grounded, and so often I feel pressed down to the Earth like a pile of rubble lies on top of me. For the most part my surroundings haven't changed. But maybe I have.

Geography used to be so different for me. It was just names. A lot of them sounded funky and if they were cool like Ouagadougou I decided I would visit there. I really like Afghanistan cause it was the first in the alphabet. I loved the name Zaire and was frustrated when they changed the country to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Rwanda to me was just the country with the ugly R on its flag. Italy was the boot country. I knew that Myanmar and Burma were synonymous. I memorized everything, all the seas, all the rivers, all the sub-national divisions, national parks, National Geographic maps, railroads, and land formations.

Then reality hit me. And as much as geography was the magic carpet of my childhood, the images of Hotel Rwanda, the War in Afghanistan and the Congo, the history of Burma, the culture and conflicts of Italy, the people of Ouagadougou, are what fascinate me today. No, they don't have the same marvel as all the names, but they mean so much more. These realities are my soap operas. The real history of these places I have studied for so long are like friends I never had. Delving into the cultures of Swaziland or Switzerland makes me feel like I am part of this world.

The problem is that geography has been a convenient way to say that I understand this world. I am so afraid of change, open-mindedness, and life in general, but I can take it all in through my books, computer, and atlases. They will never leave me. But they can never give me back the love I pour into them.

People wonder why I waste so much time wandering the world on Google Earth or researching the states of Brazil, but I do so because I am lonely. The world is a comfortable place when I can see it within my fingertips inside my comfortable 70 degree house. Everything outside scares me so much.

I cling to my friends because I don't know how to be a friend. I wish I was better. I wish I didn't need my friends so much, but I really depend on them so much. I don't know what to do with my life usually, but friends are there to guide me, love me, enjoy life with me, share with me, exist with me.

I plan everything in advance because I become lost and scared when I don't know what's ahead.

As much as I appreciate all I have learned in my years as a teenager, I feel so pathetic. I don't feel like my life has amounted to much. I don't know how to appreciate what I do have. I don't know how to feel fulfilled. I don't think there is a formula, but I hate being so miserable so often.

I feel like the world is passing me by and I am just watching it from my Google Earth. I see all my friends racing past me toward success, happiness, and accomplishment. And I see myself crying on the side of the road, alone, and watching all my friends, acquaintances, and peers pass by faster and faster. I am at a standstill. I jumped off that system long ago, but I have never come back to land. I am tired of treading water. I am tired of drowning.

I want to fly.

"Change for You" - The Midway State