I started this blog the day after school ended. When I reached a certain point, I had to stop writing it because I didn't know what I was supposed to say from where I stopped. It seemed pretty overwhelming then, and it kind of still is. But I think I might need to do this. I'm going to try.
"i feel somewhat like i am lacking in the eloquence lately, but i feel i absolutely must write something because my brain feels burst-worthy.
today was my first day of summer, but also, today was the beginning of the rest of my life. (i mean, technically, every day is the first day of the rest of your life, but that's besides the point) but, at the same time, the rest of my life doesn't even have labels on it yet. it's like when parents make treasure maps for their kids. there's no footprints yet. you just have to make up your own path and hope to goodness there's some type of treasure at the end..even when you have to put it there yourself. but either way, you're still the one charting the journey.
i imagine that's a lot what life's like. but up until now i'm not entirely sure i was really living life. from kindergarten until now, life has been about all of the charted things. it's been about the things my parents tell me to do. it's been about needing their signatures on everything, and always needing their permission. and given, i've had plenty of time roaming the streets of north canton and choosing my different activities along the way. true, i had the space to choose my own life and do my own things. but until this year, i'm not so sure i really knew who i was. i spent all this time just looking for things to establish who i am. and where has it gotten me? i'm not entirely sure, to be honest. i have discovered my passions and my likes and dislikes. i have worked too hard trying to achieve things to get me to farther points in my life, and here i am, directly before i continue to those farther things. and i don't really know where life is going to take me.
along with that uncertainty of the path lying before me, i already stated this, but i'm not really sure who i am, or who i'm going to become. over the past few weeks i've been trying to figure out how i got to where i am. i've been trying to process what makes me the way i am, and what has shaped me along the way. and i could talk about all the different things that i have always thought make me a certain way. like, all of the different parts i've played in shows and plays over the past few years. or the way i have three siblings and have spent time in all of their shadows. i could talk about stupid things that i've done and the way i sometimes walk into walls or talk to myself. i could talk about how i spent the last three years watching people leave and feeling like i was losing part of myself. and then spending time after that doubting myself and losing confidence and being a little bit of a closet emo kid. but, to be honest, i could list all of those things that have happened to me and still not have even gotten close to the epitome of what makes me who i am. while i think it may be difficult to ever really define how a person becomes the person that they are...i guess there's two things that i have been observing as my defining factors. one, the people in my life. and two, the way these people have influenced me and the way that i choose to accept and react to their influences.
so, the people in my life."
And that's where I stopped. It was nearly 3 months ago, and maybe some of the people that I may see on a regular basis are no longer still in my life as much, but not tons has changed. I leave for college in a week. And maybe my perspective has changed a lot this summer. Some new people have come into my life that I wouldn't trade for a single thing. But, mostly, I'm the same. Just three months older. And my opinion is still the same.
The people in my life. I wish I could name names and explain how each of them is important to me and everything, but I'm not so sure that I can do that. Because, unfortunately and fortunately, the way that I am about people and how they are important to me is so complex. Literally, almost every person I meet in my life has some sort of lesson I am supposed to learn from them; if I started listing them and trying to explain, I don't think I would ever be able to finish. But there's some things I must write about.
This summer I met a girl who has become literally one of the best friends I've ever had. At LEAD, I met her and we got to know each other's hearts. And while sometimes this makes it hard to go back to our lives and get to know each other not in the context of an amazing retreat, we've managed. Between her being in Europe for 10 days directly following our meeting and us not being able to talk, to two weekend spent together in our respective towns, and a plethora of late night phone conversations, I've learned that what I love about true and real friendship is that..the details don't really matter. The day you met or the things you've done together don't matter all that much. What matters is the way you can be there for each other, no matter the circumstances. The way it doesn't matter that much if you're there together in person, but rather that you care about what's going on, even when you can't be there. But most importantly, is knowing that when you miss them, you don't have to worry if they miss you too. It's a mutually given.
This summer has been kind of weird with my friends who are still here, though. If I ever decided to regret things, I may have regretted the way some things turned out in friendships this summer. But I don't regret, I believe things happen for certain reasons, no matter how much sometimes they might irritate you, or make you cry, or even just make you happy. All of those feelings have purpose.
Some of the people that I had not spent that much time with before this summer suddenly appeared in my life a lot more this summer. I became conscious of the fact that friendship isn't about the exact moment that you became friends, or even the moments where you can say 'oh I'm so glad we did this or that together' but rather the moment when you look back and say, 'I don't know when we became friends, but I don't know what I would do if we weren't, or I don't know why we weren't friends sooner.' There were people this summer that needed me who had never needed me before. There are people now who I know will miss me when I go to school that if you had asked me three months ago if they would miss me when I left, I might've responded with a 'maybe' or a 'sure?'. But now some things are different.
Another thing that has been very weird and changing this summer are the people who were very prevalent in my life who suddenly this summer, weren't so much. Sometimes when I look back on the summer, I don't really know what happened. In the cases of some of them, it was a matter of not living very close together. In the case of others, it was a matter of them suddenly not caring so much if we hung out. In the cases of even some others, we just don't know what happened. We could point fingers at our schedules which were busier this summer. We could point fingers at the bad communication of both ends. We could point fingers at each other, but that really gets us nowhere either. I guess the thing that I want people that I haven't seen as much this summer to know is the mere fact that I really have missed you. I'm sorry we haven't seen each other as much, and it really doesn't mean you mean less to me than the people I have seen. Honestly, the only difference is that circumstances worked out better in other cases. I really am sorry, and I really do care about each and every one of you.
And this idea is important when we think about going to college. Like, we can't talk to everyone from high school ALL THE TIME, and we can't see everyone when we're home for our breaks. But that doesn't mean we weren't important to each other while we were here. It doesn't mean that we don't care what's going on in each others' lives anymore. It only means that we're in different places, and circumstances change. People change. But the past doesn't. And it's okay to look back and appreciate it. Or even to look back and be glad it changed. But doing all that doesn't change it. And it is and always will be a part of us. We can't erase it, and as so many people go to college I feel like they try to change it. Don't fight that part of you, let it take a part of who you are and claim it. It will show people at college part of who you truly always will be: your childhood. The place or places you grew up. The people you knew and the people who changed you. The people you changed.
I honestly wish that I could tell every person who has changed me and affected me the exact way that they have. But, I think what I know the most this summer, especially after looking back at this that I started to write at the beginning of summer, when college was looming 6 day ahead, is that becoming is a funny concept. The way people affect us, and the way we CHOOSE to be affected are all varying. It's different with every person we meet, and everything that we do. We can't know who we're becoming because we can't know exactly what we're going to do every day of our lives, or all the people we're going to meet and have change us. Everyday is part of who we are becoming, and who we already are. It's not so much about who you become, but rather who you ARE. If we focus so much on what's coming, on the person who is existing as the us in the future, we miss out on the wonderful person we already are. The biggest things to me this summer are that I have to appreciate people how they are, and appreciate things the way they are because life is pretty wonderful as it is. The future holds more people, and more events, and more new days being the person we are destined to be in that day alone. So, it's not a matter of who we are going to become, but rather, who we are choosing to be right this very instant.
We can only become the person we are supposed to be in the future if we are being the person we are supposed to be right now.
Thank you. To everyone who has been my friend so far. To everyone who has learned how to appreciate me in each day of who I am, rather than what I have been, or by what I have done. It's never been a matter of what I do, or who I've been, but a matter of me. Right now.
I love all of you, right here, right now. My best friends, my good friends, my acquaintances, the people I've only just met, the people I've lost. The person I am right. now, Today, is a product of all of you.
I have became. I am becoming. I will only continue to become.
Today, and most likely everyday, I'm just Julie. And all of you will always get to claim a part of that.
No comments:
Post a Comment