the final point of the tournament
I played frisbee two weeks ago. That much is not out of the ordinary, as I am on the Ultimate team. What was out of the ordinary was how the tournament offered itself as a mirror for my then-current state of affairs in life. If you look at the picture associated with this post you will see me getting a face full of earth as I caught the final point of the tournament. What you do not see is the final release of an extremely emotional weekend, which was the capstone to an extremely exciting, yet trying, first half of the semester.
This is not the first time such an event resonated with me and convinced me that the universe was trying to tell me something. I find that one thing I can rely on is that something will inevitably occur that pummels me into submission; my subconscious feeling the need to repeat itself for the ump-teenth time, slow down Kyle, take a break, you are doing too much. But why, Subconcious? But why, friends and family who tell me the same thing? Why slow down and take a break? I find college to be one of the safest environments to constantly test my own limits. I would not feel satisfied at school if I refused to involve myself in as many opportunities as my body would allow. However, I will acknowledge that my lifestyle has created an interesting pattern of crashing that can be mapped back to freshman year.
It is easy to spot the quickened campus pulse at the start of both fall and spring semesters. In the fall, the excitement of returning home to school and desires towards new endeavors have the community plastered with sign-up sheets, facebook friend requests, frequent embraces, and exaggerated tales of summer shenanigans. It is not much different for the spring, except that we supposedly have our systems of operation down, lending a hand (hopefully) to more efficient management of obligation and an increased limit for what type of academic and extracurricular loads we can bear. Without going into an elongated tale of what precisely has happened over the past three years in my life (I have yet to sign a book deal), let it stand sufficient that the times just prior to Thanksgiving and spring break typically reveal my mental, emotional, and physical limits, and then the time spent processing what I just went through stores the data, relieves the tension, and pushes my limits further.
Balancing academics, competition in various states with the Ultimate team, my job as an executive of ASUPS, the formation of a new fraternity, presiding over the new fraternity as President, my job as co-coordinator of Passages, dance parties in the library, social life, interest in world events, and time spent on my new iPhone can be tricky. I know there are many other students who lead just as crazy schedules as my own, and I hope they are learning as much from their experiences as I have been.
What I really want to communicate in this post is that at times I have found this maelstrom to be comforting, and I am constantly in a state of reflection as to what the deeper reasons are for why my soul is fueled by such chaos. What I have to be careful of is deceiving myself, and must explore the possibility that I am afraid of stillness. I do not believe I am, if only because I’m finding that this pattern of crashing is becoming tiresome. However, it may simply be in my Libra nature to second guess myself in my constant quest to equalize the scales.