My Minneapolis Summer: Are We There Yet?

In a lot of ways, this has been the least stressful summer of my entire life. I wasn’t a big fan of high school. My brothers were really popular, but I was mostly really awkward, and slightly frizzy. I worked every summer from freshman year onwards, and if I wasn’t at work, I was shipped off to sports camps, church camps, academic camps, or educational vacations with the family. Years later, I still get jokes about how while my friends were in Panama City, I once spent 10 days hiking in Wyoming.

After graduation, I spent my first summer nerviously biting my fingernails, freaking out about attending college. I recieved a lot of shoulder rubs and pep talks about how everything would be fine. When it wasn’t fine, I spent my second summer nerviously biting my fingernails hoping a new school would be the answer to my qualms. That was more stressful than before because MSU was my plan B. I now had the added anxiety that there was no Plan C. Last summer, I took Calculas, which frankly was annoying enough to ruin my entire summer, and then I got to go to Rome. Which was amazing, but being half way across the world without a single friend taking classes? Stressful.

This summer, in comparison, has been a breeze. No, I don’t enjoy being 10 hours from home and yes, I would really like some quality Maggie + friends + family + boyfriend time, but my actual day to day life? So completely stress free. 

I wake up in the morning and I go to work. My hours are flexed, so I manage to get there before everyone else so I have at least an hour of quiet before the world stomps in. I do some work, I do some online shopping, I have meetings where my only job is to sit there and be quiet. I live in a family where I rarely get a word in without raising my hand at the dinner table…I mastered how to sit there and be quiet when I was ten. I have lunch at my desk while reading weddingbee.com (I need to be prepared and up to date on my etiquette for when everyone in the world but me gets married), and then I attend more meetings in the afternoon. Occasionally, I peruse the hall and smile. They expect very little of me. In fact, I think they expect more from the janitorial services that are responsible for emptying their trash cans every night than they expect of me. I’ve gotten into binds before and I rely on my giggle to get me out of them. I’m lucky I look like I’m 15. Corporate America has very little standards for its 15 year old workers. Don’t get me wrong, I do work–but my work does not pay any bills, does not cause stress, and when I leave at 4 pm, I leave my work there. 

At home, I am responsible for getting myself, and only myself dinner. Then I work out. Then I watch TV. Then I go to bed. In a nutshell, that’s my life. It’s completely boring. If this was my real life, I’d be dead in six months and literally, the guy responsible for declaring a cause of death would be like, “well, it looks like her brain just got really bored and forgot to remind her heart to beat, so she died.” 

I have 3 of 11 weeks left of this schedule. Then, it’ll never be like this again. I can say with full certainty, this will be it for me. Next summer, I’ll either be working a full time job (where my duties do not include staying updated on the most recent articles detailing Lindsay Lohan’s jail sentence), getting ready for grad school (biting my fingernails), or getting ready for some other weirdo occupation that only a Flood Family member could pull off. 

As stress free as this summer has been–and seriously, I took my pulse the other day and it was 56 beats a minute, I’m so stress free even my heartbeat is slowing down–I’m ready to go home. I made a mental checklist of all the things I should do before I “settle down” and put “down roots,” and I made sure to put “move some place I don’t know anyone,” and now that I’ve done that, I’d like to be able to check off “move some place where I do know people.” I’m ready to start spending my life with the people I love in a city I live. Alas, Minneapolis does not meet either of those requirements. 

See, stress just means you have something you care about on the line. I’m stress free here because I don’t care. I don’t care if I don’t make friends–because I don’t plan on staying around. I don’t care if my job is horrible, because I haven’t accepted that I’m going to need a job soon. The biggest stresser I have is the half marathon I’m running in two weeks and that’s because that’s a life-long goal of mine. I care so much about that, I plan my entire schedule around the training regiment. 

But back in East Lansing, I’ll be stressed again. I won’t have time to train…because I’ll have things to do. Friends to see, family to see, a cottage to nap in, clubs to run, and a yoga class to take with my best friend. 

I guess my pulse is going to raise again. But that’s probably a good thing. I guess if your pulse isn’t racing, you’re not really living.