(Side note about teenage girls: I long for the day when we all cease to use "teenage girl" (also: "teenager") (also: "youths") as an insult. Okay, fine, I've never had to live with a person younger than I, and when my sister was teenaged, I thought she was too cool to truly despise adolescents, but you know what? I like teenagers. I like teenage girls! I think they're awesome. At the very least I think they are just as wonderful and just as flawed as any other demographic, so stop yo' hate, greater population of the world.) (Addendum to side note: I don't feel like a teenage girl anymore. I know I am, but "teenager" to me invokes the 14-17 crowd. From this side of adulthood, I stand with the 13 year olds in hearing high schoolers' silent cry: Okay, fine, technically we'll include you in our demographic, but us real teenagers know you're Out, or yet to be In.)
And now I've graduated from high school (it's been a long hiatus, not much has happened, just became an official ex-student in the public school system in which I've been enrolled since the age of 5, just moving to the absolute opposite side of the continent in two months, no big) and about to be a freshman again and here we are. Wow. Weird. Millions of other people do the same thing, the whole graduating-from-high-school thing (Rena, it's your turn next! What what!), and it doesn't feel revolutionary, I'm sort of over the novelty of it, but I feel I ought to mention it. For posterity? I only recently learned that "for posterity" actually has, like, a meaning? that renders it nonsensical in several different situations. The learnin' never stops.
Anyway, the nostalgia feels relevant not only because I've abandoned this special corner of the internet for way too long but because there's a post that I posted over on the Ning, not during Beda #1 but in August 2010 (wow, I was almost in 11th grade! I definitely thought it was earlier than that!) that's been floating around in my mind lately:
"I start thinking about my closest friends and how I'm not even THAT close to them. [...] I just don't have that best-friendy connection with them. Do you know what I'm talking about? That person that you're supposed to share a brain with; the person that laughs at all your jokes, whatever. I mentally go through my past and present friends and think, nope, nope, nope, I don't know anybody who qualifies for that. It's like there's a block between me and society. [...] Ironically, I'm not that close to the person (other than my family) that I feel the most comfortable around. Like, when we see each other it's like we're best friends, but we rarely talk that much outside of our shared time together and even though we get on really well, I don't actually know them very well at all, if that makes sense."
Somebody told me in the comments of that post that they found their best friends in junior year of high school, and I think I assumed that wouldn't happen to me. And this was only two years ago, right? But guys, over those two years -- really, especially, over this past year, though it feels much longer -- I've become better friends with people than I ever thought I could. Like, the person I was talking about in that post is actually one of my best friends now, for serious. Do you know how amazing and novel it is to have a friend -- and several more who come close -- around whom I feel completely, totally, effortlessly comfortable? Good-amazing and also awestruck-amazing. Maybe it's a testament to how much more comfortable I've become with myself over this past year. Maybe it's a testament to opening up more and trusting people around you to stay calm enough to get to know you better. All I know is that my two closest friends make me laugh more and understand me better than and make me feel better than anybody else I know. All I know is that when other friends ask me to go out, I hardly ever turn them down in favor of moping around by myself anymore. Guys, I made so many friends senior year, both my age and younger. Most of them weren't close friends; most of them I'm not going to keep in touch with -- I know that -- but that's okay; we were never going to be friends for life. All that mattered was that they made the time we spent together in the place we were infinitely more entertaining.
It's just such a good feeling. I won't pretend like I'm 100% happy with myself or that I enjoyed every moment of high school or anything, but man, I went from being completely miserable in June 2011 to being so blissfully grateful that I went to the school I did with the people I did by graduation in June 2012. It's ridiculous. Be friends with people, guys, it's the best.
Speaking of friends, how awesome is it that you guys still make this blog feel as personal and welcoming as it ever did, even after a two month absence (ahem, 7 month absence on my part, oops)? You guys give me such a good feeling, too. Thanks for sticking with me throughout all of my high school years (!) and, I hope, throughout a substantial amount of my university years and whatever may lurk beyond that.
(I think I might do an update blog later this week. A bulleted list feels in order but doesn't feel appropriate to this post. Prepare yourselves (or not, whatever, it's your life).)
* Um, speaking of the flaws of youth, or whatever, I've been considering deleting just a couple of older posts of mine? All the embarrassing-thoughts-of-an-angsty-sixteen-year-old posts are free to humiliate me as much as they like, but I feel like there are just one or two that are straight-up ignorant that I don't really want lurking around the internet because, you know, people tend to think that what you thought two years ago is indefensibly what you think now.
1 comment:
It's so good to have you baaaaaaaaaaack!!!!1!!
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