I’ve been told I’m a fairly positive, optimistic person. And I am, mostly because I utilize romanticization in my day to day. Going away for college was a big adjustment, as it is for many students, and I really struggled during review week and finals week. What kept me afloat was music and what it allowed me to do: romanticize my life, my college experience, and my journey.
I’d gotten down my lifestyle of being a college student who lived on campus, but this semester I had something new to adjust to. I’m back home, commuting to UC Berkeley by Bart for a total of two hours every single day. I’m saving a ton of money I don’t have, and Bart is completely free now that UC Berkeley is providing its students with BayPass. So, I don’t even have to pay the 10 dollars it takes for a round trip ($200 per month).
However, what I’m not paying in dollars, I’m paying for with my time and sanity. I was cursed from birth with motion sickness, something extra cruel when taking my love of reading into account. In a perfect world, I’m on a Bart, lost in one of the many untouched books from my shelf. But this is far from a perfect world. I can’t indulge in my hobbies, and I can’t do anything productive for school… so what can I do?
Romanticize the commute. Starting from my walk downtown and ending once I get home, I’m fully indulged in my music. It worked at first, but, as the semester continued, I was burning out and losing my momentum.
Most days, I’m happy to daydream and look out the window, especially when I’m able to snatch a good seat. But there are many days where my energy is close to nothing, and all roads lead to my zoning out and feeling like a zombie ready for a 12 hour nap. I get in my head, in a cloud of ugly funk wishing I was at home not wasting time away.
As students the hustle culture is a little too real. Sitting down for a full hour not technically doing anything felt like the biggest waste of time when my head was swarming with all the tasks I needed to complete once at home. Homework, applications, studying, chores, meal prepping, and then it repeats. But all this overthinking wasn’t helping, and I knew that because it was overpowering my romanticization techniques.
I realized something during the season of Thanksgiving, the question of, “what are you grateful for?” being everywhere. I had too many answers to just give one, and during one of my commutes back home I found myself lingering on it. I had an entire hour to sit and think, looking out the window with soft music to accompany me. Most of all, I was grateful for my family and that I was experiencing and struggling with something they never got to do. I was pretty tired that day, but found my eyes getting lighter and my head getting clearer as I continued my reflection.
I found my curse, motion sickness, as some twisted blessing. In the middle of a busy day, a busy week, my body was forcing me to pause, to be unproductive, to take a real break and not scroll on my phone or rot in bed thinking about what I should be doing instead.
All freshman year, I was romanticizing it all wrong. I was using music to daydream and intentionally lie to myself and pretend the situation was better than I perceived it to be. It’s a great tool, but sometimes a situation truly is better than you perceive it to be, it’s just the perception part that’s difficult. There’s no time to stop and actually thoughtfully work through it.
Reality is, in part, what you perceive it to be. I saw my commute as another task that takes way too long to complete, and it is. But now I see my commute as a luxury, one I didn’t have last year. The luxury of having that space for quiet reflection that wasn’t guilt inducing, and being able to romanticize my life because it actually was romantic.