Looking the other way is revealing

I was in Whole Foods the other day (is that okay to say on a blog? Am I supposed to disguise the names and places in my life so as to protect the innocent? I guess I'm not here to slander Whole Foods, nor am I really here to promote them, so too bad. And then the leading question: who is really innocent around here?) and I had to repress an outburst. Maybe the fact that I suspected the lady ahead of me was eyeing my sushi with disdain says more about me and some unexamined lifestyle choice paranoia, but I got the surreptitious I'm-eyeing-your
-grocery-choices-and-making-judgements-about-you feeling. And I'm sure it was partially the frustration that I couldn't afford to stock my kitchen with any of the very pretty vegetables or gourmet cheeses that made me want to scream: "YES I EAT MEAT AND SOMETIMES I EVEN BUY HARMFUL CHEMICALS; I'M WEARING LEATHER SHOES AND SOMETIMES I LEAVE THE LIGHTS ON!" I imagined a hush falling over the store; the cold stares; the muttering. (Now, be reasonable, you coo, nervously. Not everyone who shops at Whole Foods is anti-leather or anti-meat, and hey, what's wrong with the goal of non chemical healthy food? It's OK, I'm calm, I'm calm, I mean, I 'll be fine...) I've been under a lot of pressure lately, you know?

This is one way of saying, today is the day before tomorrow, and tomorrow is the day where important veterinary future things get decided, like: will you be toiling in some practice next year for some money (but there's still the evils of job hunting) or toiling in a veterinary school for no money in the hopes that you'll gain some crystallizing experience that tells you once and for all that you're a doctor now? And you see, I'm not thinking about this right now. I'm thinking around it. I'm thinking about how when you move someplace, your environment defines you in some intangible way, much like the way physicists talk about every action with its equal and opposite reaction. It may look like you're sitting on the table, but the table is also opposing your butt with equal and opposite force, otherwise it would be the floor, suddenly, opposing your now bruised posterior. You push on your environment, it pushes back. (Huh, you say? What does this have to do with tomorrow? Wait for it...) So now I'm thinking about next year, and moving back to the west coast, and how it will be like a tight sweater that used to fit. You put it on, and--huh, you say to yourself, how come I never noticed that squidgy way the sleeves hug my armpits? I'm not really the same exact person now after vet school. And you see, Whole Foods reminds me of Portland, a little, because the whole place is so much more populated by a liberal population generally willing to buy spices in bulk and high priced granola. And when it comes right down to it, I suffer from two basic emotions when I think about moving back. (Very basic, don't say you weren't warned, this is straight back to middle school, people.)

(Let me digress for a minute, at the risk of revealing too much and exaggerating my background to the point of pathos, which is not my intention. I was NOT a popular kid in middle school. Whether or not this should matter is a moot point. It did, and it still does somehow, because it was a defining moment to get to a college where all of a sudden I felt like I belonged. And whenever you move, there's that need to find someplace where you still belong. And when you don't it's slowly and quietly unsettling; it undermines you; it crops up when you are anxious about your abilities or your future. Like maybe how good a doctor you will be? Or where you will be next year? Get it?)

One is the disappointment you feel when you hoped or first belonged to a new self-identified group of people that you thought were so cool and then you discover THE.BIG.SECRET. You admire they way they dress, or talk, or opine, but inside they are just people. CRAP! They have hypocrisy and stupidity and egotism just like all the other people you didn't want to be like. This may make you philosophical and happily assume, yay, we're all more alike than we think! Or, like me, you may get a little bitter and lash out desperately in some public forum, like say...a blog, for instance. And maybe deeper down, or just mixed in is the other basic emotion. This is the ohmygod iwannabecoolihopetheystilllikeme/doistillbelong? emotion. Tricky. Which came first, the wanting or the rejecting? Or do they just keep happening over and over and all mixed up? Lest you think I'm a complete self doubting, self-hating noodle, I will say in my defense that tomorrow is scary and I've been trapped in my house in the frozen tundra of the north in the dark thinking about it for many many months. AND I don't get out much. I promise, soon I will try and remember how to talk and play well with others, and respect their opinions about organic produce and try to have well-reasoned and insightful conversations about the merits and demerits of factory farmed fish, but right now I want to say that for lunch I had factory produced beef from Stop N Shop, my shoes are leather, and my hair is undyed. The truth is, I'm still twelve, I'm wearing a dorky sweater and I don't know which bands are cool, thankyou very much. Here's to hoping you like me anyway, dear west coast, tainted as I may be, because no matter what happens tomorrow, internship or job, I'm coming home.