One Year

I know it's been a couple weeks since we have talked. I've been busy which I know isn't an excuse. I've been stressed which I also know isn't an excuse. But mostly I've been having trouble writing which is both the worst excuse and the most honest. But today is a big day and I must acknowledge it. I have made it one year of blogging. Last Halloween I christened this post duumshit because I thought, who am I this stupid freshman? writing a blog about a life I know so little of? But I made it. I made it through my first year of college and am now a month into the second year.

People always ask me on birthdays if I feel different. I guess they want to know if I feel older. Aging is a gradual process, and as such it's hard to recognize the difference between 12 and 13, 18 and 19, 45 and 46. So I always shrug off the answer and say "Nah, I feel the same".

This time I don't. I do feel older. A year later, this blogs birthday, feels very different than a year ago. I have different priorities, different problems, different dreams, different perspectives, different loves. I can feel it in the feel of my skin against my sweater. I can feel it in the feel of my sore muscles from mud-sliding this weekend. I can feel it to my bones. I can feel it to the center of my heart.

Today I feel old. I feel 80 years old. And my 80 year old self scoffs at my 19 year old self for being presumptuous enough to think I know what that feels like.

A year is a long time. Time. Everyday I am reminded that it never stops. The days I want it too it always speeds up and the days I want it to speed up it always slows down. I guess that's just.... cliche. But there is a reason somethings are universal.

Last year. Holy shit last year. Anyone even remember my first post? It's scary. And not just cuz I wrote it on Halloween. Last year was so... dramatic. This year is so.... dramatic.

This year. That's what I have started this post to talk about. This year. The present and the future. The past is past and thank god I survived and THANK GOD I came away unscathed. That's not true. I was plenty scathed but THANK GOD I healed. That's what this one year has done. Healed me.

Healing. The reason to be positive. There is a person in my life who needs that reminder and I am here to remind him that. Healing is the reason to be positive. Not because if you're positive bad things won't happen to you. Being positive isn't a shield. Being positive isn't being in denial. Being position is recognizing that being scathed is okay. Because who knows what will happen in a year? Who knows what the truth will hold for you in 365 days? Not fact. Just truth. Because the facts of a year ago haven't changed. The truth I have taken from it has changed. Because I healed.

I healed on my own, I healed with my friends, I healed with my family. I healed with the people who loved me. I healed because I had 7 billion people to listen to me heal. To read along. To watch me grow. And so what if only in a year I got 2700-odd page views? (A bit off of 7 billion) This blog let me put to the world complaints, memos, updates, thoughts, ideas. That is what is beautiful about my year of blogging.

The summer after my senior year of high school I thought of an idea. It was a concept I had never considered before, but once I had it seemed so obvious. I had to become my own best friend. Not because I don't have best friends, Caitlin and Claire have always been there for me, but because I had to live with myself everyday. This summer I decided to be my own lover. Not because I didn't have a lover (no further comment), but because I have to sleep with myself every night.

I'm not saying its easy. That I just decided to do that and I did it and it's great. It's like any friendship or any love affair. There are insecurities, judgments, arguments, frustrations. But I don't think a break up is going to happen anytime soon.

Being my own best friend and lover, I have found positive thinking easier than ever. Healing is faster with a close friend to lean on and who is closer than yourself? Nothing is ever too much to handle with my own shoulder to cry on. I still cry on other people's shoulders but... I feel healthier.

One year. I can't believe I kept this up for a year. My roommate and I both decided to start a blog at the same time. I'm at 78 posts over the last 12 months. She lasted for 5 posts in 3 months.

It's therapeutic... I guess I need a lot of therapy. Hah. It's also a life style. It's a habit. You know, like shaving. You don't have to do it everyday, but you end up doing it a most days anyway. (TMI?)

You know what else is therapeutic? Music. I forgot that. I can't believe I forgot that. I used to listen to music for more hours in the day than I slept. I listened to music for more hours in the day than I DID'T listen to music. Then it was like summer and the only time I listened to anything was like the top 40 station while I was driving. Now back at school I'm like, "WTF, you think I have time to listen to music????" Plus my pandora stations are all old and tired. But a coupla days ago I put on a play list I hadn't listened to since senior year named "Low Key". Holy shit. Music Renaissance! Artists who I never listen to anymore or who I only like one song of abound in this ridiculously motley play list. Since then I've listened to only that play list on shuffle. Sometimes you just need a little soft alternative rock to placate you during stressful times.

So. In conclusion. Happy anniversary! Keep reading! Be positive! Heal! Befriend yourself! Love yourself! Write! Listen! Grow! Grow! Grow! And know, I'll always be here for you. And I'll always have something to say about it. :)