Kuhn is a genious.

So now I'm sitting here at my computer, tissue in hand, absentmindedly wiping my nose. My tea is sitting here in front of me, cooling down so I can drink it. I just had an im conversation that was about the topic that I most loath (no, not chemistry... no, not precal). It should have been very emotional and deep.. but it really wasn't. It kind of surprised me. Sigh. I kind of don't really care anymore. Is this what it's like to grow older, to grow into an adult? Do adults just begin to not care as much about trivial things? I think that's how it must me. Because I know that when I was younger, I felt things with such emotion. Things were always such huge deals. Like even the end of freshman year. I turned a situation into a huge ordeal. My life was completely turned upside down over some stupid thing. If that same thing happened today(that is I found out that some guy I know was smoking) I'd be like, "whatever. It's your life. It's completely idiotic to smoke, but, hey, I'm not going to stop you." And I'd move on. I think that's the kind of attitude I'm beginning to have. It's just that alllll those years of my past are part of me too. A great teacher once told me that, oh how did it go?, that, "Who you are at any given moment is predicated by who you were." We are composed of our past. If I could somehow distance myself from all those years of ignoring it, looking the other way, then I could easily say, "Know what? It's not a big deal." But I'm beginning to think that all these years, I have been wrong in just covering up the past. We're reading part of Family Secrets in English. Annette Kuhn says (I realllly like the following passage. Really. ):

"... But it is not, surely, to be concluded from this that the past is better left undisturbed. These 'shadows' are a proper part of life, and must not - indeed they cannot- be split off from what is more agreeable or acceptable, to be simply hidden from sight. For the repressed will always return, and more often than not in some infinitely more ugly guise. Bringing the secrets and the shadows into the open allows the deeper meanings of the family drama's mythic aspects to be reflected upon, confronted and understood at all levels. This in turn helps in coming to terms with the feelings of the present, and so in living more fully in the present. "

I love that passage, absolutely love it. It is like the theme of my life. I love it. It's like she's speaking directly to me. Me alone. I must remember to take it to heart. At the present time, I do not have much desire to delve into the past and explore it by talking to other people about it, but I earnestly want to delve into my own past, my own memories. That's fine. And I should understand that if I ever want to do the former, I certainly can. I shouldn't feel restricted just because it is a topic we never talk about. I really like Family Secrets, even though some parts I can't quite grasp. I wish we were reading the whole thing of FS, instead of WWtN. Some people that I've talked to in my class really hate this memoir unit, but I don't. It's just different.

Like me.