Happy New Year

This week contains both my birthday and New Year's, which makes it naturally overly-contemplative. Thus, a year in review is born.

The ending of this year feels not only like the closing of 365 days, but the last year that can truly be classified as my youth. I realize that the twenties are also considered young, but this is the last year where there were more carefree days than not. In the coming years, I'm going to have to work my butt off, and I look forward to it, but that doesn't mean I can't mourn the eighteen years of relative coasting that are now dwindling to mere hours.

This year, I occasionally felt like an adult. I got a wonderful first job that I wouldn't trade for anything. In this job, I met amazing people who I now call friends, as well as finally found what I consider my true calling, if there are such things as callings. This year, I let a false calling slip away, gradually but assuredly, and embraced a new picture of my future that I grow more excited about all the time.

I feel like I broke free from some of the crippling shyness I've endured over the years, and even if it's not totally gone, I now consider it conquerable, and that's all I need to succeed.

I applied to my dream school, and they've given me many heart attacks along the way, and I still don't know if the damage to my cardiac system is worth it, but hitting that "submit" button felt like hitting the "submit" button on twelve years of education.

But I was also a kid in 2010. I took New York City with my Grandma and Dad, felt the allure of the concrete jungle under my feet and the security of my favorite people by my side.

I felt like a kid when I heard that terrifying word--cancer. I felt the almost cliched emotions that accompany it: this could never happen to me, somebody I love; it must be wrong; I must be dreaming. But I came to terms with it and though it still pains me every time I see a little of the happiness drained from my grandma's eyes, replaced with the dingy darkness of defeat and fatigue, it overjoys me to hear her laugh a laugh reminiscent of the pre-cancer days and hug me as tightly as she ever has.

I delighted my parents by belatedly taking an interest in one of their greatest joys, football. I've watched every Colts game this season, cheering alongside my parents, as they welcome the opportunity to finally share something so pivotal to them with me. And it really is fun, sitting on pins and needles, clutching my lucky quilt, as the Peyton leads the Colts down the field in an overtime drive towards the in-zone.

I read 22 books this year, and while I wish it had been more, those books are now a part of me, my subconscious. Many people say "you are what you eat" but I think "you are what you read" is much more accurate.

I also got thirteen new books waiting to be read. There isn't much better than a teetering stack of unread pages and uncreased spines just waiting to be enjoyed. These will soon become part of my 2011 year in review.

I'm sure there is much more I could say, but now it's late and I'm tired, so I will end. Here's to the amazing friends, new and old, that made 2010 great; here's to academic successes and learning experiences and a few mistakes along the way; here's to good health; here's to loving and supportive family; here's to sappy end of the year posts.

Happy 2011!

In a Box

The older I get, the more I feel like life is most akin to one of those money machines they have on game shows--those machines where the contestant stands in a little glass elevator-shaped contraption. Money, in various denominations, flies around them in a hectic furry and the poor person tries to grab as much as they can and stuff it anywhere they can until time runs out and it all disappears.

I'm standing in the middle of my own machine, perpetually grabbing at the little slips of paper around me. Written on those papers is everything important to me. Some have short term goals, scholastic things, stuff I have to get done, finish Christmas shopping. Some have people's names, family and friends that I want around. Others have long term goals. Get into college.

I'm standing in the middle of this chaos, grabbing at all of these things. There isn't enough time and they aren't slow enough to prioritize. I just have to snatch at them as they fly around, hoping I manage to grab something worth keeping.

And even once I do get hold of something I want or need, it's even harder to hold onto it. I try to put it in my pocket, but the wind sweeps it out again. It's a constant struggle, a constant fight against elements I can't control.

That's the worst part. I can't control it.

I hate not being in control. I can't control it when the Carolina admissions people lose my transcript three days before they want to seal my fate. I can't control what people think of me, how they interpret my actions. I can't control schedules made by others or the weather or the law.

I can only control my feeble little arm, reaching out into the uncontrollable, grasping for something worth it.

Some people believe if you grab one of those things, all the rest of them won't matter. For some people, it's God. I never got the hang of that one. For others, it's love. That one's out of my reach too. Others find it in their work. Well, my transcript's lost in translation.

Is my vital piece of paper still swirling undetected over my head? Or have I missed it completely? Has the thing I need to make life worth it slipped through my fingers already?