cut (loyal)ties

When I first came to college, I was shown an image on Facebook regarding “the college experience.” It was a checklist with three boxes: good grades, social life and sleep. The heading read, “College students- pick two.”

For a college student, I’m probably way too involved for my own good (or my own sanity). The last three weeks have felt like a whirlwind. I no longer track days by what time it is, but by what class, meeting and/or event I am going to. All my days start at 8 a.m. and end when I finally pass out from having too much shit to do.

Essentially, I have two lives here in college: my sorority life and my journalism life. If I’m not at a restaurant or in the STAR lab, then I’m at a sisterhood event, meeting or mixer (and vice-versa).

Yet as much as I would like to be Superwoman and be able to do everything, there’s not an option or an app for that. . . sorry, bad joke.

But in all seriousness, the last few weeks have made something blatantly clear to me: these two lives I lead do not mesh well together.

I’ve gotten some crap from my beloved STAR people about being in a sorority (though it’s all in good fun. . . I think) and my sisters just stare blankly and smile when I tell them that I’m copy editing articles, having issues with InDesign or doing layout on Sundays before chapter meeting.

And in between explaining sorority life and why I am in a Greek organization to my friends on the newspaper and having my more involved sisters being a little more wary about what they say around me, the question I’ve been dreading to ask myself can’t be ignored any longer.

What do you do when you realize that the places and people where your loyalties lie conflict with one another?

As a Greek woman, my first obligation is to my sisters and my fellow Greeks. As a journalist, my first obligation is to the truth. For some reason, these obligations cannot work together and I’m feeling, more and more every day, that it’s one or the other.

Sisters are forever, but (in theory) so is a passion and an eventual career.

At times, I’ve tried to imagine what each would say if I told them that I was leaving the newspaper/sorority for the sorority/newspaper- as if the answer I am looking for is to stay with the more forgiving and supportive organization. Unfortunately, that epiphany hasn’t come to me yet and I’m not expecting it to anytime in the very near future.

Yes, I know I am leaving this entry open-ended. However, my head and- this is going to sound so cheesy- my heart hurt too much to think about it much more.

keep the change

When I walked into my Bikram yoga class this past Sunday morning around 8:35 or so, I was expecting the room to be three-quarters full of yogis stretching and getting ready for the workout. Instead, the room was maybe half full, and standing in my usual back row, semi-hot corner spot by the door was a man.

Now, Bikram yoga is open to all and everybody is encouraged to try it- but please let me describe this man for you. He was middle-aged- about 55 to 60 years old. What did he look like? I think the best way to describe him is by using food.

Imagine if you will- a marshmallow. Like a big, puffy, roast-it-over-the-campfire-and-make-a-s’more-with-it kind of marshmallow. Now, take a toothpick, break it in half and stick both pieces into the sides to represent short and unproportionally skinny arms. Break another toothpick in half for equally short and skinny legs. Now attach a red jellybean on top for the head, scribble on a goatee and that is, generally, what this man looked like.

I was a little confused as to how he ended up in a Bikram yoga studio, until I learned that the older blonde on the other side of him was his wife who had just started practicing Bikram yoga a week ago and dragged him to class “just to try it.”

While I support anybody trying Bikram, here’s the thing: when you see a very large man in a cutoff Budweiser shirt who can barely touch his toes in a room that will reach 105 degrees with 40 percent humidity, you just know that it’s gonna end badly.

And, sure enough, for almost an hour, I watched as this man struggled and cursed his way through the 13 pose standing series. He couldn’t hold any of the poses for more than 10 seconds without his face literally turning beet red and, as the poses progressed, the look of disbelief on his face just became more apparent and exaggerated. When our instructor cranked my calf up above the back of my head during bow-pulling pose, he looked like he was about to have a coronary just from watching me.

And though I had to leave early, I saw a look of terror take over his features as the floor series, or “the real yoga,” started. The last thing I heard him say as I left? “What the hell did we just do then?!”

Now, I’m not saying that Bikram yoga is easy for a first-timer- I literally left in tears after my first class and couldn’t understand what I had just put myself through.

However, I felt such an immediate change within myself after my first class that I forced myself to go the next day, and the day after that and the day after that… before I knew it, I had gone 32 days in a row. Now, I need to go to yoga or I felt gross and lazy.

I usually don’t accept change very well. I’m stubborn and I like having a general routine. Yet this was a change that needed to be made, as much as I hated it at first.

This may sound judgmental: during yoga, our instructor said that some poses create a “mini heart attack” that will help prevent the big one. For the man standing next to me, that mini heart attack may have come too late.

I believe change is and never will be easy. But with so many happening in my life right now, I can only use my past experiences to remind me that, while vexing now, this too shall pass.

And while I wish him the best, I am not expecting that man to ever step into a Bikram studio. Ever. Again.

my funny valentine('s day)

I know three young women who are currently engaged. All of them are smart, beautiful and will be marrying “the man of their dreams.”

All of them are also sophomores in college. Two became engaged before their twentieth birthday, and the other one celebrated her twentieth birthday only two weeks before her engagement. Two of them already have their wedding dresses picked out. One recently updated on her Facebook that she was “so sad” that she was almost done planning her wedding. One had been dating her now fiancée for three years before their engagement, one is engaged to her on-and-off boyfriend of two years and the most recently engaged has been with her fiancée for a little over a year, which includes a two-to-three month break. 

And while I am happy for them because they are happy, the cynic in me worries that, for them, an engagement does not mean true love, especially at such a (fairly) young age.

With Single’s Awareness Day right around the corner- because, no, I don’t celebrate the overly commercialized Valentine’s Day- combined with the above realization, I can’t help but wonder: what’s the big rush?

While I’m not much of a romantic, the one thing about love and relationships that always melts my heart is the idea of the promise ring. When the boy slides that simple ring onto the girl’s finger and promises that, one day, he will replace it with something better? Yeah, it gets me every time, as much as I hate to admit that I do have a little bit of a soft side.  

For the longest time, I couldn’t understand why I loved the promise ring, but shutter(ed) at the thought of engagement and marriage. But I may have finally found my answer: perhaps why I love the idea so much is that there is logic and rationale behind it. 

What it says is, “Realistically, we aren’t ready to give the rest of our lives to each other. But I know that one day I will, and I will wait until we are.” It’s the smart engagement ring.

To me, the waiting and the promise of something more is what makes love interesting and what helps it to grow. 

Sure, promises can be broken. But isn’t that what love is? Giving your heart completely and totally to somebody? Knowing that they could break it beyond repair, but trusting and knowing that they won’t?

***

Happy Single’s Awareness Day to all (and I suppose Happy Valentine’s Day to those sentimental few). Enjoy your day full of roses, crappy heart-shaped boxes of chocolate and expensive dinners. For those who want to celebrate the right way- wine, good chocolate and a shitty romantic movie to ridicule at my place.