i'm about to start my period, okay?

It's 17 degrees outside and our heater is broken.

I am the absolute last to complain about being cold, but I am cold. I feel bad for my poor roommates.
(In semi-unrelated news, I had 4 cups of tea today.)

Fun fact: if you snuggle under your quilt & piles of clothes (for added warmth) and listen to the Avett Brothers for too long, you start to realize that this is kind of a metaphor for your life right now.

It is cold.

And then you feel like you're being a little melodramatic.

And then you eat a few almonds,
and realize that you can be however the heck you want because this is your life.

Life is crazy like that.
You can't control it, but you sure can psychoanalyze it. Who says that isn't fun?

The point is, I've been feeling off lately.
I think I am a very independent person. My mom taught me well, and still does. I can do stuff.
But I had an epiphany this week that made the emotional side of my life a little more clear.

I am an attention-snob. 
I need it to survive, but not in a normal way.  
I think my problem is that I'm just not normal.  
I don't need to talk about myself all the time.
I don't even need to talk at all.
I just need to be involved.
I need people to look me in the eye, and acknowledge that I am a human with respectable opinions.
I need to actually meet people that I want to share those opinions with.

I don't want to feel like a charity case.  
I don't want you to feel sorry for me and parade "are you okay"s around.
And I don't want too much attention because I don't need it and I get embarrassed.

Basically, I guess I know that I'm supposed to be here.
But it's been a year, and I still don't know why.
I'm ready to find people that think like me (and don't like hiking, but do like camping like me).
I'm ready to succeed at something.  Anything.

I'm taking baby steps, don't worry.
I changed my major. Geography, with an emphasis in Tourism. I'm actually very excited.
I got highlights. Something about feeling better about myself.
And every day I try to remember that even though this part of life is the last place I'd like to be right now, that there's got to be something I'm learning.

Every thing I hate now will help me become a better not-a-travel-agent (code for "I don't know what my major is going to do for me"), wife, and mother.

And that will be an infinitely better time than now.

Even though now is pretty fine, now that I think about it.