Here Comes The Sun

Alright, so the last post was about nostalgia for elementary school. However. Since Rachel started listening to The Beatles, I've started listening to them again too. A lot. They're all I've been listening to lately.

For me, The Beatles started in the winter of sixth grade and lasted through eighth grade (when I finally found some new music, namely U2 at the time). So, what I've really been feeling like is my middle school self.

I know, middle school? The time everyone looks back on as horribly awkward or miserable? But the thing is, I really liked middle school. I was still such a kid then (most of my "problems" didn't arise until 9th grade). I loved my friends and teachers and school subjects, and I still had plenty of free time, so my creativity wasn't quashed with a load full of homework. I was pretty darn happy.

So, listening to the Beatles has been making me feel much happier than I think I have been since, oh, 9th grade. Maybe it's all the vitamin D talking, but I really feel good. And I want to stay that way. It's not that I have some Peter Pan Complex and want to avoid responsibility and homework. It's more that I want some tiny way to be carefree.

And I think that more and more, that desire is manifesting itself in an asexual identity.

Can I say that?

To be honest, perhaps it's only what I feel right now--that at this time, I am so busy that my mind knows it's the only way to be carefree. But I can't deny that saying it right now feels fantastic.

I was an outstanding first grader

I spent some of tonight looking through old papers in the attic. We have a lot of stuff saved from school, especially from when we were really young. It's because all the stuff from that time is so freakin' cute. I went through and recycled all of my AP Euro tests, but I could not part with any of my "First Grade Super Speller" or "Alphabet Journal" relics.

Sometimes I honestly think I peaked in elementary school. I loved doing the work so much then, and I was already ahead because I started reading when I was three. Now, I feel like I have to work so hard to keep my head above water. Of course I do. I'm 19 now, not 6, and I'm a sophomore in college completing two majors and a minor.

But really, looking at these old papers just makes me want to be an elementary school teacher. Or an elementary schooler.

Although, apparently even when I was in first grade, I had some troubles. My report card said that I was an "outstanding first grader." But then my teacher mentioned that I had chronic stomach pains, and that she noticed that I worried a lot, which might have caused the pains. I don't remember that at all, but do you know what I do remember? Entering second grade and deciding, and consequently worrying, that I hadn't grown sufficiently smarter over the summer.

I think my nostalgia for elementary school is caused by some need to reconcile something from that time. Not to get all psychoanalytic, though I tend to do that, but I think the worry of not being smart enough (compared to others in my grade) robbed me of innocence that early in my life and has followed me up to the present. I think it's the reason I have very little confidence in my abilities, despite earning good grades.

Or maybe, judging by the fact that I unconsciously checked my schedule to see how long until Spring Break (3 weeks), I'm just a little tired.