Untamed Directions

The other day I discovered that my hair first thing in the morning vaguely reminds my roommate of how complicated travel plans can become. The mirror before my morning coffee regularly reflects a mess of different choices and different directions I could take. Would it be best to head east, like the strand at the very back of my scalp? Or perhaps a trip, imitating the curl above my left ear, to Costa Rica and back would be the best way to go? In the end, most people would just sigh, wash out the tangles and do their hair exactly as they would any other morning. I, on the other hand, am left to struggle with the sort hereditarily stubborn hair that refuses to settle into any sort of decent direction and accept that I simply have to go with it; I simply have to take the course plotted by the rooster’s crest I awake to.

My compulsion to get up and leave has proven itself to be, like my hair, something I find uniquely difficult to tame. The very idea that I am stuck in one town for the next three years to do something as inconsequential as “graduate” strikes me as the sort of tragedy books are written on; or rather aren’t, considering the lack of inspirational new terrains or languages left to conquer in Victoria. Instead, I’ve taken it upon myself to scrape my already liver-drained bank account empty and go anywhere at any time the student life will let me.

The itch to follow the kinks in my early morning tresses began to really bite early last year and I started soliciting friends to follow me to Mexico; mundane and touristy but something I had yet to get a taste of (besides, who wouldn’t love to spend a solid week tequila soaked on a beach?). And did I ever fucking solicit; you could have probably seen the knee high boots and neon belly tops on Google Earth. Of course, I got plenty of offers; a little nudge from one friend proclaiming how much they’ve always wanted to visit Mexico, another saying they’d long dreamed of spending spring break on a beach and yet one more who nearly drooled as much as I did at the idea of unlimited drinks. But, somehow, whenever it came time for me to walk into the travel agency’s office and take a stab at my credit, the friend mysteriously came down with an inability to pull their shit together.

So I sat myself in front of a pitcher. Hey, if I couldn’t drown myself in tequila for spring break, I planned on spending plenty of time with the Canadian alternative. Dejectedly sprawled in a booth at my local pub and drawing borders in the foam at the bottom of my pint, it came to me that this was not the first time I had been forced to curb my wanderlust after a partner in crime had come to their senses. Other people had incomes they couldn’t put on hold, a second half they couldn’t peel from their hips, or, you know, shit to get done.

And yet none of this seems to have even the slightest effect on how I wake up every day. I still can’t get that cowlick to sit smoothly on my neck, deny myself an opportunity to be anywhere unfamiliar, or come close to comprehending why so many people can’t push themselves outside of their home circle. Why bother with all the wistful sighs and talk of packing up your suitcase if you can’t even bring yourself to get a passport? Then again, that leaves the untold stories, untamed hair and uncharted men for me.

Tried, Tested and Truant

I still clearly remember the first time I skipped. My best friend of the week and I had ditched our eighth grade Health class to spend the 45 minutes rebelliously hiding out in the girls’ room, complaining about our monstrous parents and counting the paper towels stuck to the ceiling. It was glorious and it was the start of a long love affair with truancy.

At that age, though, just about everything I did was driven by a pubescent desire to stick it to the man; and, man, what was cooler than skipping? I could be both completely unproductive and have the time to be as catty as every fourteen year old girl needs to be. The basement bathroom became our lair; we would sit there for the period, trying to avoid both teachers and leaky toilets while discussing the more important things in life. Who had yet to develop a new set of womanly goods, who was slutty enough to French kiss a boy and how grossly inappropriate the Gym teacher was.

It wasn’t until I left for my exchange year in Switzerland that I discovered how much more of the world was open to me when I wasn’t confined to the classroom. I could easily spend my time visiting my friend the town over, on a shopping spree or, better yet, seeking out apples to hollow out for later use. By the end of the year, I decided to go back to a Français class I had been systematically avoiding, only to have the teacher exclaim that she had believed I had left the country a couple of months prior. Either way, it wasn’t like my time would have been better spent learning literature or chemistry in a language I barely understood.

Of course, I didn’t spend any of my time bothering to learn chemistry once I got back to my home soil anyway (after all, it’s not like knowing the melting temperature of iron is going to help me on my path to literary infamy), and my teachers quickly made a habit of congratulating me when I made it to class on time, if I managed at all. My homeroom teacher, however, had the misfortune of being both anally retentive and responsible for my attendance, and my love of truancy can be faulted for several of his panic attacks. At one point, my mother was called in to discuss my perpetual ditching, to which I kindly informed her that if I could maintain the sort of grades that would land me in any university I wanted, my attendance record could go stuff itself. What followed was the greatest maternal reprimand of my life.

“You are an asshole, Tanysia,” she told me over dinner that night, “and nobody is going to like you.” She was, of course, referring to the apparent lack of respect my absenteeism shows to both my teachers and classmates, but it was nonetheless one of the best and most inspiring quotes of all time. It was at that moment that I decided to prove my mother wrong. I would continue to spend as little time as possible in my classes, run in panting half way through a lecture and still somehow have friends.

So far, so good. As a matter of fact, I have yet to be called an asshole by any of my professors, nor by any of my friends; other than, perhaps, the time or two that I’ve directly insulted them (but that’s beside the point). The last couple of years at UVic have allowed me to determine I can avoid both class and being called an asshole. Take that, Mom.

Resolving What?

It wasn’t until several days into the New Year that I realized it had even happened. After all, I don’t quite remember getting past the Eight! I shouted around 11 or so and, as far as I’m concerned, a booming headache does not mean the rest of the countdown ever reached Zero. But the evidence was against me; the calendars have changed, I’ve been forced to date my many bills with an ’09 and, somehow, it’s January again. Alright universe, I’ll take that extra 365 days to prepare for my next New Year’s hangover.

The question I’m faced with now, though, is not whether or not I’ve managed to survive until 2009, but rather what creative set of resolutions I need to come up with for this year. Were I to ask my mother, I would certainly be sat down with a bottle of her favourite Port while she admonished my heavy drinking and advised that I start thinking of my liver. I would undoubtedly sip from my glass and sagely refer to the old adage that “it’s not alcoholism as long as you’re a student.” Which of course means that, despite my mother’s (and numerous acquaintances’ and colleagues’) advice, I could not possibly resolve to drink any less liquor, nor would it be humanly possible to consume any more. Besides, I’m fairly certain liver transplants are common practice these days.

I suppose I could always rely on the old favourites of many a Resolutionist and try quitting smoking, exercising more or perhaps losing weight; but those are the most ineffective (not to mention bloody boring) resolutions I’ve ever heard of. While each resolution has its own merits and may very well be effective for your average accountant, I might as well tell myself “be healthier” and hope for the best.

Faced with a dilemma like this, I turned to my favourite fallback for imaginative solutions; TV. Within moments, I stumbled upon the Friends episode revolving around Ross’ decision to try something new everyday; not bad, I thought, in the way of resolutions. Supposing I could give it a try, I mentioned this newest decision to a friend of mine, who nearly choked on her beer.

“Don’t be ridiculous, T. What is there left to try that won’t get you killed?” Valid point.

Having thoroughly exhausted my ideas and my will to bother, I determined that this would be the year of no resolutions; the year of doing exactly what I feel like and no more nor any less. I will refuse to follow through on anything for any longer than I feel like and to start afresh at any point, on any date, at any hour. I will be a liberated woman, free to do exactly as I please without thought of the consequences for this New Year.

Not that a resolution like that changes a thing anyway.