I've been home for 2 weeks for Spring Break. The first week was so I could be home to celebrate my 23rd birthday with my family and then this week was my actual Spring Break. It's certainly been a great break and I'm definitely not ready to go back (but then I never really am).
As part of video collab project I'm part of with 3 of my friends, we have a theme each week. For our Spring Break we all did a "Thoughts from Places" video as first inspired by the Vlogbrothers. This past weekend, my mom and I (my dad wasn't feeling good) went to Arizona to spend time with my brother and his family. We went to the Arizona Renaissance Festival. I took footage while at the Festival and did my Thoughts from Places video on it.
I learned recently via John Green's twitter that there was a project in Your Pants to create a list of all Thoughts from Places videos. One of the things listed was it be video of your hometown. However, I don't live in Arizona. I currently live in Texas but was born and raised in New Mexico. I sent my video to be included anyway and it was added to the list. I guess the "hometown" thing isn't really a requirements especially since other nerdfighters have done videos from places that aren't their hometown.
I know you're probably wondering what the point of this blog is and would like me to just get to the point. Well the point is that this project made me think about things. Specifically things about my hometown and even myself.
I've been living away from my hometown now since January 2008 when I first moved away to Oklahoma to finish my Undergraduate degree at Oklahoma State University. Then in May 2010, I graduated and moved to Texas in June to attend Grad school.
I've been home for breaks because I really haven't had anything else to do. But it's never really enough time.
I love coming home and spending time with my family. I enjoy coming back to a place that is familiar. True, it's a small town and there's not a lot to do here but it's my home. It's where I grew up. I thought about doing a TfP video about my hometown but because I didn't find out about the project (and I had already filmed the Ren Festival for my collab channel), I didn't. Also I didn't have time this time to film it because I've been too busy with family and will be leaving on Monday. I really just found out about the project yesterday.
However, I have been thinking about what I would film when I do a future TfP video of it. I think about all the Tourist things I could film that for me are just part of my hometown. I think about if they'd be interesting enough to share. Should I even share them? But then again, I also think about how not much seems to have changed in my hometown. I'm sure things change but since I'm not home on a constant basis anymore, I don't see or notice the changes. I see things that have changed when I come home but it's usually not really big. My parents tell me about things going on in my hometown. Things that are changing. Everything changes despite the fact that I may not be around to notice it. To me, it seems as though my hometown hasn't really changed all that much.
Thinking about how my hometown doesn't seem to have changed much made me also think about myself and how I really haven't changed that much. At least not since high school that is. I look at pictures from when I was in high school and now and I look the same. I haven't really changed. I still look the same as ever.
Tonight at church, I was looking around and saw a few people that I grew up knowing and thought about how much different they look now. They have changed. They look different. But me? Not really. At least my appearance hasn't changed. I know I've changed in other ways though especially since being away from my family. I sometimes wish I could look a bit different. Even my style of dress hasn't changed all that much. My mom keeps saying that I should dress differently. That I need to dress more grown up. The problem is though, that it just doesn't seem like me.
It's still a few years away but I'm already thinking about my 10 year high school reunion. I probably won't go but I know that if I do, I won't look much different from when I graduated. I know it'll be only 10 years but still. You would think I would look at least somewhat different but I don't. I know my friends will comment on that fact and it does tend to bother me a bit.
I look at others my age and I'll admit that I sometimes am jealous of them. They can pull off the more grown up look. I don't seem to be able to do that. For one thing, I look a lot younger than 23. I look more like a high school student than a graduate student! I'm not complaining about that much though. I like that I look younger and I'm grateful for it. There's also the fact that I'm petite in size. I'm only 5'2". My nephew is 12 and he already is about a head taller than I am. I guess I could also blame myself some for the fact that I don't dress my age. I'm really comfortable with jeans(or capris when it's warm) and a t-shirt and my hair pulled back in a ponytail and tennis shoes. That's what I wear on pretty much a daily basis I can't do a lot with my hair because it's very curly/wavy and it's hard to keep nice and neat when it's down so normally I just put it up. I'm trying to grow my hair long enough to cut it for Locks for Love which is why I don't just cut it. (It's not quite long enough yet). I have some nice tops and pants that I could wear if I were working but I'm not currently. Plus, I only really dress up on special occasions (Christmas and Easter mostly). I also just don't really go to many places that require me to dress up nice.
Another thing is that I don't wear makeup on a regular basis. The only time I do is for special occasions. Also, I have skin problems and feel it's just better to not make it worse. Plus, my mom has told me that I really don't need to wear makeup because I'm pretty enough without it. I believe that but sometimes I feel like I still should. But as I've already said, I don't really go anywhere anymore so why bother? When I was student teaching in Spring 2010, I had to dress nice everyday and I wore makeup everyday because I needed to look more grownup (they were elementary students). I honestly got tired of wearing the nice clothes and makeup everyday. I would come home afterwards and change into more comfortable clothing and wash off the makeup. I just never got used to dressing up and got tired of it.
The truth is that it's hard for me to really look older when I don't look that old to begin with. I admit that I need a style makeover. The problem is that I don't know where to begin. I feel like I should make a change but at the same time, I don't. It's just complicated. I've changed inside so why can't it be reflected on the outside?
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