I'm kind of a stickler for Dawson's Creek, and because of certain circumstances (like having no friends), it formed a very big part of my teenager years. Together with Ally McBeal, it set up my ideas of relationships (not conciously), and until very recently I've over-analyzed my motives and feelings and relationships to death. I even based an entire relationship around the Dawson/Joey phenomena (although it also worked for Ally/Billy).

Recent procrastination efforts a few weeks back led me to revisit my DC days and I streamed a few episodes over the internet. All I could find was Season 2, so I watched Episodes 1 to 4 until I got so entirely sick of Joey's constant complaining and general destruction of a relationship she's been waiting years for, Pacey's emo streaks, and Jen looking broodingly at Dawson.

Tonight (after a good long day of work!) I decided to try again, but I couldn't find anymore Season 2, so instead, I watched the very last epsiode. That's right, the one where.... well, you know what. I guess I still shouldn't spoil it, but if you watched it you know what happened.

And it kinda hit me. I mean I've thought this before, in the back of my mind, but I guess it's really watching Season 2 and then the final episode that made me finally articulate it. I'm losing potential. It feels dumb for me to say it, because I've always believed that it's never too late to change your life, never too late to choose a new career path, a new partner, country, etc., but lets face it. It's only as a teenager where your possibilities are endless. When I was in school I could've been anything. I was good at everything, but in the end I chose Computer Science. And I don't regret it so much as I regret everything I ended up cutting out of my life. Lately I've been spending a lot of time with a friend who seems to know a lot of things about a lot of things, and I love to just sit and listen to him talk. Not that he likes to hear himself talk, it's just every now and then I provoke him into a rant (he hates that I'm turning hippie) and I love how knowledgeable he is about things, even though he likes to finish his rants with "but I don't know that much". But he sure as hell knows a lot more than me, that's for sure.

I might've gone off on a mini tangent there. But my point is, I look at teenagers and I am envious. They have so many choices, they could be anyone they want. One day they could change their live ambition and not have a useless degree and 3 wasted years flapping around from their previous life ambition.

Some days I think I love where I am. I love that I have the friends that I have, I love that I'm about to graduate with a degree I've worked long and hard for, I love that I'm currently the 2nd best 53-60kg karate girl in the British Universities. Other days I am anxious, wondering where I'm going with all this, what I'm going to do with my future, whether I can continue taking my karate as casually/seriously as I do. I'm anxious that I wasted 4 years of my life on a degree I'm not really suited for, that so many people are doing better in, that I don't know what I want to do with my life or where I want to end up even in the next 2 years, anxious that I'm going to lose touch with all my friends and end up pretty much alone (again. Watching Dawson's Creek).

I have a friend I have mixed feelings for. Ok there are a lot of friends I have mixed feelings for, but this one friend in particular. Some days I'd do anything for him, some days I don't want to hear from him for a good long while, some days watching him laugh makes me wonder at how happy watching someone else laugh can make me. Some days I can experience all of this in one day. Don't get me wrong, I don't have feelings for him in the way that I'd like to be his girlfriend, or jump him, or anything like that, in fact he's going out with a good friend of mine. In fact, I've just worked out, from typing this, that he's like a brother. Someone you can get exasperated at and have unhappy silences with, but in the end you'll always forgive and get along and make fun of and bum around with. We look out for each other, and I'm unhappy when certain things are happening and he's not around. Anyway, the reason I started this paragraph is because I don't want to lose that. I've never looked at him before and thought "I'm going to miss you", but I am. Because I feel that as soon as we leave, no matter what we are now, there's nothing that holds us together tight enough to maintain a friendship, and our friendship is only tangible enough when we're around each other, which we are often enough.

I guess this is the little insecure Third Culture Kid in me coming out, but I'm going to miss having friends.

I guess theres a lot in this post to address, but as I'm no longer over-analyzing all my emotions, it'll sit. I guess I should round off with my original point, and that is, that I'm envious of teenagers for their potential and rainbow of possibilties, and worried that I have picked the wrong colour and will be stuck with some hue of it for the rest of my life.