Going Home.

The school year finally ended. The school year in which I invested most of my time into pixels and electronic nonexistent items within a virtual world. I wonder if I will look back on this year of seclusion and regret the hermit lifestyle I lived, or if I will just accept it as another one of the lessons I learned and lifestyles I had to live to know how I want to live.

As it is, by the second semester I had better accustomed myself to maintaining my time. I'd found more time for friends, school, and the things in life I had begun to neglect since the last summer left me alone. I love my friends dearly, and I know without them life would be empty. Even as their lives change permanently, for the better, I know I'll remain close to them, whatever effort it takes.

I began this blog with the intention of writing about a specific two day time frame, and find myself summarizing feelings of the whole year. To return, I spent finals week mostly in the car, carting items the four hour drive home and returning to school for more. On the morning I was going to leave for the summer, I met with Leah and Judy for breakfast. These little times, the invitations, I so often take for granted, but at least on this day in particular, I fully appreciated what a blessing it was to spend the morning with two people I care about so dearly.

As I drove away from Tallahassee for the next few months, there was a definite lump in my throat, accompanied by a sinking in my stomach. I wasn't eager to return home; last summer had included some of the more stupid choices I've made and some of the most painful losses. At least this time, friendless at home, I'd only suffer from extreme loneliness.

I pulled into my driveway. Seeing the TV on, I wanted to sneak through the side door and remain unnoticed, to cause my mom and brother a laugh when they realized I'd been home for quite some time. However, upon entering the side door into the kitchen, I was met with an absurd sight. A metal gizmo was clamped to the table, Mom was spooning some rather mushy noodles onto a plate, and Dustin was holding a large, flat piece of dough and blow-drying it with a hair dryer. (This piece of dough would never get cut, Dustin would dub it "Supah-Noodle. It was the slimiest of them all, and not even the dog would finish what Dustin had taken one bite of to prove his manliness.) "Andrea! You have to go out back and see my vegetable garden!" my mother said.

Nothing quite compares to family. Nothing is ever as peaceful as returning home to a homemade pasta mess and being immediately put to work in the chaos.

Fishtank.

I have a pet fish this semester. Four actually, and they are black tetras, and I didn't name them because I can't keep them apart. They are collectively "my fish" or "fishies," and that is all they ever need to be.

Over Christmas break, my parents asked me what I wanted. At first, I said a computer, to which they responded mine still had a warranty. Then I asked for a new front bumper to my car. Dustin asked what was the point of scratching an additional bumper. Then I remembered the loneliness of my dorm, and I asked for a fishtank. Mom hesitated to respond, then expressed her concern that any pet of mine would promptly die. Thanks for the faith, Mom.

Either way, I finally got my fish tank and bought my pet fish. I used to think fish were a fake pet. I mean, dogs and cats have feelings. Fish just kind of exist. The day I brought my fish home, I forgot to open the bag when i let them sit in the tank for the water temperature to adjust. As a result, when I returned my fish weren't looking so well. I felt panic to a degree that I wouldn't have expected over the danger that this four fish I'd had for a few hours were facing. I quickly released them into the tank, and watched terrified until they had all finally resumed their typical swimming.

Every morning when I wake up, I feed them and smile. Every night, I say goodnight to them. It sounds ridiculous, but I have legitimately built up an attachment to these four little creatures that inhabit a tank of water in my dorm. I look forward to seeing them, I'm glad to care for them, and I know that life would be lonely without them.

Frostbite.

As I have stated before, I live in Florida. The Sunshine State. Where it never snows. As such, I am quite accustomed to warm weather. I can wear jeans and a hoodie when it's 80 degrees out, and in fact did for the majority of middle school. (I was still figuring out who I was.) I mean, I have a tolerance for some cold, in short bursts, perhaps when it's still early morning and the sun hasn't risen, or maybe on a rare day when it stays cold all day and it's necessary for me to actually search for a shirt with sleeves that reach all the way to my wrists.

That was then. Now I have moved into northern Florida for college, where apparently the weather is much more brutal. I woke up yesterday for the first day of classes and checked the weather app on my iPhone. It was currently 32 degrees outside, but it felt like 22. I contemplated dropping the class, but begrudgingly realized that "I would have died of cold" would not have gone well with my parents as to why I lost my scholarships, dropped out of school, and moved back in with them forever.

I blow dried my hair. Not for any sake of fashion, but because although arriving to class with icicles on my hair might look surprisingly like dreadlocks, I felt it was not the best thing for my health. I did put on multiple layers of clothes. Florida jeans are made to be worn in the summer and not overheat. As such, they aren't good for the winter. In fact, they are completely useless in the winter. So I wear leggings under them to make up for this fact. It might help more if the leggings in Florida weren't made to be worn in the summer and not let you overheat.

Today, it is 33 degrees out, and it feels like 33, since there is no wind. In fact, according to the app, the wind is CALM at calm mph. That is great to know. I'll go prepare for that immediately.

Love.

Love. There a thousand directions in which a blog on this topic could go. I'll start by saying that in other languages, there are often multiple translations for our version of love, referring to different types of love. Isn't it odd that we use the same word to describe scenarios ranging from someone with whom we want to spend the rest of our lives to a tasty meal which we found quite pleasing to the palette?

In my last blog, I touched--merely touched--on the topic of love for family and friends, about both of which I could write books and still never fully explain. However, today I want to touch on the topic most commonly portrayed by the media and most pressed upon our minds since we were first old enough to watch movies: I guess I'll call it relationship love for lack of a better term.

See, from what I've been taught my whole life in movies--fairy tales, chick flicks, even comedies--is that two people meet and realize they are attracted to each other, physically emotionally, maybe they initially hate each other even, it's not too important. In the course of the next small time period, there is an obstacle to this love. However, they are both amazingly able to overcome this, and you have true love! Applause and tears, that's how to find a soulmate.

Of course, everyone always mocks this. Everyone seems to know this is a farce, that love can't be that way, but deep down it's still difficult for me to overcome this mindset, that love should be full of turmoil but resolution, constantly full of the butterflies in the stomach and jitters and whatever else they portray. I think that many people, even if they openly know the movie love isn't true love, still seem to search for that feeling in life. I know I do. But any relationship I've ever been in lost that feeling eventually. And then I wonder why I looked to the media when one of the more true examples of love has been in front of my face just as long.

My parents were married some years before I was born. As long as I've been alive, they've been together. They seem to enjoy each other's company; they have such goofy jokes and sometimes my brother and I just roll our eyes to see them together, singing or some other nonsense. The little quirks that all families have. Also, though, like I'm sure everyone does in their lifetime, they've been known to fight on occasion. I'm sure I don't even know the worst of it, but I'm willing to bet at times they have been so angry with each other that at least one of them has wanted to walk out.

"Love is not a feeling; it's an ability." That was a quote in a movie. I, however, beg to differ. While I agree that love is not the emotion we make it out to be, I say rather than ability, love is a decision, love is a choice. No matter how my parents have ever felt towards one another, whether happy or angry or sad or disappointed or overjoyed, they have always made the decision to still be there, for better or for worse, through good times and bad, through whatever life threw at them. The choice to stay together, to still live together and function together, that's what love is. Any movie that shows love as the resolution after one conflict has only scratched the surface. I think love is so much more deep and so much more true than that.

Mom, Dad, I love you both very much. You two have helped show me more clearly that anyone else can a depth of love that movies or stories or music can't even touch on. Thank you for that.

The End of a Year.

Sometimes I wonder if there are a limited amount of chances in life. It's hard to explain exactly what I mean; I don't think that the world works in such a way that you get, for example, ONE SHOT to find your "soulmate," and if you screw that up you are over. On the other hand, I also don't think that the powers of the universe, whether God or destiny or chance, gives everyone an unlimited amount of chances to make mistakes, to do it wrong, and to screw up.

I guess the reason I think this is because sometimes I wonder if I've used up my chances. My chances to find true love, my chances to be a good person, or to become someone great in life, or things like that. I certainly haven't made the best use of my time these past few years, and as I look back upon 2009, I just see how I wasted my time: spending it with the wrong people, or isolating myself, wasting it away on things that really didn't matter. The years before weren't too much more profitable, but I think 2009 was the worst spent year of them all. I look back and all I see are ruined relationships, lost friendships, regret, hurt, people I wronged, and situations in which I shouldn't have been. I don't know what good I have to say about this year. I even don't think I can use the, "My mistakes at least taught me something," loophole, because I doubt the lessons learned here are even significant enough to make a difference on how I view this year.

However, I've also learned more about love than I expected. I more fully understand the unconditional love of family. I never realized until now just how important it is that, no matter where I've been in life, I always had their love supporting me like a backbone, through the worst and best of times, and that no matter how my life goes, I can always return home to these people who will love me the same. Additionally, I've learned about the importance of friendship, those lessons you hear throughout life and never acknowledge. I only have a few friends, but their of the close variety where I know that they will still be there when I'm having a rough time or a rough day. They are the people that I'm not afraid to be myself around, even though I may sometimes be a little odd or irritating, because I know that they will love me nonetheless. I can tell them anything, and they will believe in me far more than I can figure out how to believe in myself.

I started this blog feeling dejected, and in writing it I've begun to smile, because what started out as a feeling of hopelessness evolved into a realization that I'm not alone, and life still holds hope for me and the future, no matter how the past looks.

So here's to 2010. I'll go ahead and look forward to it, since it's going to happen whether I welcome it or not.