Serendipitous World of Consequences and Reactions

 I have recently been blessed by the crippling question of what I am going to do with the rest of my life. It is a struggle that many college kids face, however, I feel like I am surrounded by cliches, not lessons. These quotes that have now even permeated the Internet (looking at you Tumblr) do not even come close to consoling me about the fact that I feel that my only hope of success at this point is to meet a nice Jewish boy and settle down. However, I have begun to find solace in unlikely places. Last night, while driving home from the movies, I had a moment. There is no word to truly describe it but it was a moment of realistic optimism, and a sense of fear, that was perversely exhilarating. It was a moment of divine intervention. I was the only driver on the highway, and every song that played on the radio was almost handpicked to inspire me out of the slump that I seem to be stuck in. In that moment, there was no thought of the past, no thought of how my past could haunt me, but rather a clear, straight-forward view of the immediate future. 
There is a distinct difference between the immediate future and the present, although the two may come seconds within complete overlap. There a completely different mindset. There is a sense of hope in the immediate future, albeit sometimes groundless. The immediate future is normally a head space reserved for the paranoid and problem-solvers, while the distant future is only for absent-minded dreamers. I found myself, earlier this year, stuck in the distant future. I was trying to problem-solve for 6 months at a time, which is enough to drive someone insane. This takes us to the cliche sayings that are supposed to console someone is such crisis. "There is nothing to fear except fear itself." Fear is the root of misguidance, the core reason why we start to distance ourselves from the present. The present is a hard world to live in, so when fear penetrates the present we must look to the future for hope and sanity. However, fear can drive us away from our lives, our reality. It can make us desperate for the hope of something else, whether that be better or worse. It is our to conquer this fear and strive to live in the present that is the truest of challenges. So for now the open question is, how does one fix the mistakes of the past, accept the hardships of the present and limit how far their mind creeps into the future? 

"There are boys, booze and I look great tonight!"

There has to be some sort of sadistic profiling scheme to conceptualize my unnecessary and completely avoidable desire to put myself in awkward social situations. You may say, "well Aurea, that is a jump..." My only answer is absolutely, it is an ridiculous jump only spurred by my current Criminal Minds binge (what can I say, I have the old man hots for Mandy Patinkin.) However, there is no other explanation. In my extensive analysis I have noticed three commonalities between each one of my textbook Aurea stories: heels, boys and copious amounts of alcohol. 

HEELS

 I am convinced that I would never have to"walk of shame" without the invention of slut shoes. Many modern college girls know what I am talking about. When packing up to go off to college every incoming freshman realizes that they are not prepared for their first Fraternity party because they don't have a pair of rocking, 7-inch Steve Madden slut shoes. They are tall, shiny and painful, but you love them nonetheless. It is almost like all of the joy you have ever taken from rebelling against your parents has been crammed into two, size 7 beauties. So you go out (broaching 6 feet tall), you meet a guy and you humor him. You talk for a while, listen to him brag about his shore house and then the foot cramps start. You can't take off these beautiful miracles of nature because then you are the Freshman girl who can't handle heels. Twenty minutes later, the Frat guy has moved on to the prestigious private school he went to and your toes have begun to turn a deep purple. It, at this point, becomes abundantly clear that you are not walking the mile back to your dorm. So when this guy tells you he has a fish tank in his room, you pretend to be interested in the hope of a chair. Then one thing inevitably leads to another and you are stomping through a Saturday morning tour group full of judgmental stares wearing a black body con dress, a Prep sweatshirt, carrying your treasured slut shoes. 

BOYS

The boys, I would hope, is an obvious connection. It is the truest common denominator between all horrific, college, TSM stories. After careful examination and years of field work I have come to one key conclusion:

Boys are not complicated. 

They really aren't. Girls try and try to make the male race into something it isn't. Boys aren't laying in bed thinking about falling in love, or buying their house. Spoiler Alert: they are watching porn. At any moment, most men are thinking about one of three things: sex, food or competition. They hold the incredibly useful ability to only think about the most primal of desires. Even though I am at the deepest level of understanding when it comes to this concept, past 11 pm I can't seem to remember it. It is like I have suffered from some sort of amnesia which has caused me to become the worst of monsters: Rom Com Girl. Yep, you heard me, I become the girl that confuses You've Got Mail with reality. This is the essence of my 11 pm downfall and only the start of where my problems begin. 

ALCOHOL

Jaime Foxx is the true college philosopher. He, in his unparalleled insight, knew that sometimes you just really need to "blame it on the alcohol (baby.)" There are nights were a certain girl (ahem) goes out with the intention of making a huge mistake. In these desperate moments, this girl understands that she should not text her ex-boyfriend, and she should not make out with her TA, but she just can't help herself. The next morning, after recalling her events, it becomes apparent that she needs an out. She needs an excuse for the borderline inexcusable actions she had committed. This is where alcohol comes in. In all honesty, about only one-half of the time a girl says "I feel so bad, I was just soooo drunk" she is lying. She wasn't drunk enough not to realize that the boy she was making-out with was your ex-boyfriend, but she was drunk enough not to care. 

The combination of these three vices are my kryptonite. The true trifecta of destruction. I feel that this disclosure, in some universe, acts as a warning. When I say, "there are boys, booze and I look great tonight" politely place me a locked cage with water (and crackers please) because I am about to morph into a Rom Com, slutty monster.