I am in Control of my Own Space and I Like it

I'm a highly-strung kind of person. I always have been, and it was worst in the last couple of years of High School. We only had one computer and my sister was always on chat; "Oh, just this one more reply ... oh, look what she's saying ... hey no, she shouldn't say that ...". It seemed to go on forever, and I could never get my assignment begun. Then there was my dad, "let me get my mail for a second, oh I accidentally deleted your assignment". Then of course there were the chores, "Before you begin, you should ...", "I'm going to the cleaners' tomorrow and I need you to ..."; none of them respected the fact that I was serious about my school work and needed to work myself up into the right frame of mind for it. It was impossible for me to organize my life as I had no control over my environment. I have to admit I made it worse for myself; whatever it was that happened to me, I could always find a reason why it was my sister's fault, or my mom's, but not mine. Most of my reasons were partly true, but sometimes I blamed my family for things that were mostly my own fault.

Now life is my responsibility, and only mine. It's a lot more under my control. I live in a house with other people, but I have my own space. We share some of the chores and some of the food. But I can decide for myself when I do my part of the tidying and the cleaning and shopping. I have my own space, my own laundry to do, most of my own food to make, my own desk, my own computer, and my own life to organize. If something goes wrong, there is no one else to blame, just me.

In the first two weeks, it was all completely overwhelming, but made better by being so much fun, and the fact that everyone had told me it would be fun but would settle down once people got into their routines. And that's just what did happen. Now, I feel in control of my schedule and my life more than I ever have been before. I have the power as well as the responsibility for my life.

For one thing I'm not in class for as much of the day, and I can choose where I do my work, sometimes back here in my room, sometimes in the library or some other place. At home, I had to be in bed at 10 pm because to get the bus, I needed to get up at 6 into complete chaos caused mostly by my sister. Now I can go to bed at 2 am; if I have a 9 am class I can just get up at 8.50 and go. Shower, hair, breakfast, etc can be done at 10.

I can completely time manage myself. When I get an assignment, I can block it out. Same thing with studying for a test, which in my program I have all the time. I put it into that week's timetable along with classes, parties, and other scheduled things. I have to say, "OK, I’m setting my alarm for 8.30, I’m getting in the shower and eating and I’ll take an hour to do my own thing in the morning and then I’m going to the library to study from 10 until 5 with classes in between, and then I’m going to come back and maybe have an early dinner, an hour with my friends, and then get back to studying." Everything goes on my schedule, and each night I look at it so I know what the next day will be like.

If I am disciplined enough to follow it, then I’m not stressed out because the day got away from me. But sometimes it's not so easy to discipline myself; I constantly need to be working at it. It helps to be living in a house with just five other people -- from what I've seen, the various floors in the res can be chaotic, with loud music and people coming by and dropping in all the time. I'd have to learn to resist all that; I could do it, but it would be harder. Now, the computer is the hardest thing. Unless I'm using the internet, I disconnect. And unless I have using the computer in my schedule, I put it under my bed.

I used to stress out all the time because I had no control; somehow I had to get the four-hour assignment done in two days, but I never knew exactly when, so it stressed me out for the entire two days. Now I'm in control, I can block it in and not feel stressed out all the time I'm not doing it.

I'm happy with my life, and I'm proud of being able to organize myself so well. Responsibility, power, control: they all go together. Or they should.