Then and Now

It's very weird to think that this time just a year ago, I was in a new strange scary place, making new friends and adjusting to a new life. Now, that same place feels more like a home than any other place in the world. When did that happen? When did it turn from a terrifying new experience to an old familiar collection of spaces and street names and smiles?
I have plenty of memories from certain areas and certain faces, most I love, some I wish I'd forget, but either way they're there. And that's the difference between then and now.

A couple days ago I had this insane idea to delete my blog. I know, what was I thinking?? I was feeling a fresh start was in order, maybe start a journal or something. But really, who am I kidding? I have dozens of journals and notebooks filled to the brim floating around my room. They're overrated. I like my blog. It's homey, don't you think?
So tomorrow's the day. Heading back up to school to restart up my life as a college student. It's funny in the beginning of the summer, I really didn't want to come home. I was hoping those last few weeks would just last throughout eternity. But now that summers over, I'm almost a little sad. Saying goodbye is always tough, I guess. In two days I will be starting my sophomore year, which is funny because it seems like just yesterday I was walking into Hass for the first time. Lost and scared like all the other freshman. But this year I really think I got it down. Not to say things won't be scary and different, because I know they will be. I'm ready for that. That's what makes it interesting. Welp, I feel like I've successfully bored you with this post. Nothing much new to report. Over and out.

Sometimes you just need someone there to tell you that you're on the right track and that this is exactly where you're suppose to be and that its not stupid, this thing you're trying to achieve. You just want that future you to pop out and say, listen relax because everything turns out just fine. They never do though. It's all about the wait and the fight and the anticipation. If I could go back in time to one moment in my passed life and tell myself everything will turn out fine it would be the first day of fourth grade.I was the new kid in a sea of staring wondering eyes. I didn't know who I'd eat lunch with or play on the playground with. Remember back when that was your biggest concern? If I could go back I would probably tell myself that the math problems never get easier but they do come to an end eventually, that being the new kid expires after one school year, and that that girl you'll meet in a little will be the same friend you'll be giggling the on beach with ten years from now. Honestly it never really get easier but the waiting and anticipating does come to an end. And just then that's when you realize everything really does turn out okay. With just the right amount of work and hope and prayers and time everything is perfect. 💜

I find growing up highly overrated sometimes. Yeah the freedom is cool and being independent is great and all by just like most great things they come with a price. In the case of growing up, the price is responsibility. Tonight was suppose to be the perfect start to the perfect week. We had counted down the days for months. All summer we just wanted it to finally be here, August 11th finally a break from everything. My friends strategically planned out the train trip and subway ride with no driving involved. So naturally the alcohol part of the plan was there too. I've never been a big drinker but just this once I agreed to give up my position as mom of the group, just for tonight. I'll give you a little spoiler alert to my story. My night ended with one of my friends past out in a hospital bed with needles and tubes sticking out of her arm. My friend, the one I used to play tag with on the playground. We always wanted to grow up.we always wanted to be anywhere but where we were.

Memories

There are pieces of memory that are more fragile than others. Something about them cuts deep, right to the source of feeling. We hide these memories, tuck them away behind the far corners of our minds, you would think we should want to forget them. But no, far from it. They're so soft and precious, delicate little fractions of time ours for the keeping. Those little memories are all we have left from those times so we savor them, we feed off them back there in the depths of our minds. We feed on the authenticity of those stored moments, the simplicity, the pureness, the innocence. They're connected to our strongest most powerful emotions. They're what drive us, what create us. Yet they torment us because those pure memories seem so tangible, when in reality they are eternities away. And so we live to create more deep feeling powerful memories, just to be able to store them away and dwell on them later and say that we've lived.

2-24-12 (never posted this, oops!)

Growing up, I never had anything I was really good at. I always had to try harder than everyone else in school, I never had a favorite subject or natural athletic or artistic ability. I never felt special. Despite this, without even really realizing it, from a very young age I had ruled out any future occupation that includes a cubical, a pant suit, or a too well worn desk chair. I was always on my feet, never really having the patience for TV or video games. Back then, I never considered this something special, just different.
When I got to high school and everyone started planning their futures as lawyers or doctors or business men or teachers it seemed like everybody had something that made them special except for me. And that, combined with some other components is what landed me here. It was those days of uncertainty when I really started doubting myself. And with the doubting came the hating, and everything else that followed. But after dozens and dozens of babbling sessions, group meetings, and hilarious meditation videos, I had finally found what I had been looking for all along. More like it found me, I guess. To make it through I didn't need some special talent, I just had to stop repressing the person I truly am. Because that person has everything I need, not through natural ability, but through experience. I stopped feeling like a failure for having to try harder than anyone else because it was those experiences that forced me to become a hard working person in every aspect of my life, even the ones that come a little easier. I began living through these people that had rebuilt me and shown me my strength is caring for other people. Ironically my talent became being able to help and encourage those who are lost, like I was, being able to relate to experiences I had never been through because of the feelings they produce.
Today, people who don't really know me see me as that girl that's always doing schoolwork, always doing that extra little bit at practice. People who really know me know it's because I would never be where I am if it weren't for that discipline. I was blessed with something a little different than a lot of people. And for that, and for those experiences that brought me to this very dorm building, I am incredibly thankful .

The Few

There are people in your life that know you. There are others that really get you. Then there's that select group that understands each and every aspect of your personality and loves you for them. I've learned when it comes down to it, it's that small group of people that would do anything for you, and vice versa. They're the ones that build you up. They find the great little treasures you never even knew you had within yourself. They're the listeners and ticklers and teasers and shoulders to cry on. They know your faults and love you anyway.
I've made a ton of mistakes along the journey to where I am now. Looking back, I can pick out the members of my special group with out a problem. They're the ones that have always been there allowing me to grow and watching me shine. Truly a blessing <3