So Very Thankful

MEMEMS

Thankful for moments like these, where everything just feels right. Writing with the company of warm apple cider as the sun sets.

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For a brief time during my junior year of high school, I kept a journal. I found that journal recently and decided to read each entry.

It’s sad, surreal, stressful.

April 25th, 2018

This quote, referring to the general state of ~things~, surprised me as it came just a day after one of my biggest successes in high school. I would chalk it up to being moody if similar sentiments weren’t scribbled day after day on those pages.

I felt unappreciated, like I didn’t belong, and like things weren’t really going my way despite trying my best.

I present that past reality in an attempt to juxtapose it with my new one, as it helps capture how I currently feel.

Thankful for friends like these, who have helped to turn my new house into a home. From watching Brokeback Mountain on a phone projector to stealing snacks from the First Year Formal, they’ve kept me feeling better than I’ve ever felt before.

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I think in the past, a lot of my unhappiness with various parts of my life have been due to inconsistencies between my expectations and reality. My academics aren’t perfect, but they’ve never really been perfect. Where I’m at now is a place where my expectations match up pretty well with my results.

Very thankful for the successes I’ve had in my classes so far, and for the mental fortitude to overcome the failures.

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College has kept me very busy. I thought I would have played so many more Counter Strike matches than I have so far (2, and I think I left halfway through both of them). As it turns out, there’s just so many things going on every day and it’s made me so happy.

So I think with that I want to address a previous post of mine that begged the question: how fast does college go by? And I want to bring us back to way further back in my childhood. In the second grade I remember reading a book that I think referenced Einstein’s theory of relativity and my takeaway being that things go by quicker when you’re having fun than when you’re not. I could’ve misremembered this entirely but this has stayed with me since.

Back home, things seemed to go fast in retrospect but it seemed to go fast because of the monotony; every day seemed to be similar to the day previous I couldn’t distinguish between them. Now, I’m having such a good time that it’s unbelievable how quickly I’ve completed roughly 10% of my college experience already.

Thankful for the constant company and events that I seem to both lose and find myself in.

So I’m happy here, thriving, and it’ll probably go by so much faster than I can even expect now, but if it’s for the reasons just explained, I’m okay with that, I just hope the rest of my life will too.

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I have struggled with defining myself as an introvert or an extrovert for years but I think I have a pretty clear picture sans a label. I am social as much as I can possibly be throughout the day, limited only by schedules, sleep, and homework, but I hate large groups without a buddy to whisper to. I crave the intimacy (and attention) that small groups provide.

College has been so great because I’ve been able to have those intimate moments all the time with many different people as I’ve found so many that seem to be similar.

Thankful for this boy, who at least for now, seems to enjoy my company enough to spend many hours being the buddy that stays by my side in the crowds and pretends to laugh at my jokes.

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In closing, I’m thankful for lots more (family, Pink Floyd, lobster ravioli, etc) but those are mostly continuities and this post can only be so long. I’m grateful to be in a better place now and continuously improving, especially when reminded of where I was less than two years ago.

Matthew shared a quote with me recently from one of his trips to Iceland that I loved so much I rushed to write it down, and I want to put it here because it encapsulates part of the reason why I wrote this post.

Give love now, because we don’t know how much longer we have to give it.

Some old man in a lighthouse in Iceland.