Wow. I haven't written a blog entry in a long time. Well, what better occasion to break the drought than my birthday? Well, belated at this point; I turned the mythical 21 three days ago, ushering in a new year of my life by sneezing and sniffling, visiting my doctor and running family errands. Yes, I'm a maniac. No, I don't know how I'm going to sustain this crazy lifestyle when I get older.
It is a bit of a personal milestone to have reached 21; there were times during my dark days when I thought it was destiny that I'd be dead before now.(based on a statistic my Grade 10 business teacher told us, that before you turned 21, someone you knew in high school would be dead; a statistic I have had the good sense to question, eventually, but not before I thought I would be one of the dead) But in the end, I didn't have the guts to act on that thought process; or I had the guts to not act on it, however you look at it.
I'm not really sure why, though; I've not really achieved anything, not in the traditional sense, at least. Academically, I'm pretty clsoe to a wreck, with no real idea how to apply anything I've learned into making some money. Athletically, I continue to be a klutz; I haven't even played a sport for more than a year now (Wow; that's something I hadn't even realized until now). Socially, where I'm arguably the most successful (thanks to the internet, really), is nothing ground-breaking. I've got a lot of friends who are good people, but I wouldn't expect any of them to take a bullet for me.
But despite all that, I'm not exactly dissapointed with my life. I mean, I'm not quite proud with the way my life has turned out, but I'm satisfied, in a sense. I have done my level best to treat everyone with respect, I try not to piss people off (maybe unsuccessfully sometimes, but it's the thought that counts, right? Besides, who wants to be loved by everybody; I'm just aiming for ambivalent). I've learnt not to cling to things beyond their expiration date (recognizing the expiration date is another matter) and that you have to choose your battles, but not shy away from them. Most of all, I've learnt that I don't know everything, and never really will; it's tough enough remembering what I do know now. So while I may have gotten not much done in strict societal measurements, I think I have made some progress towards being...mature? grown-up? It would be one of those, I think. I suppose what I'm trying to say is I'm not the same person I was a few years ago, and that, to me, is progress. That regardless of where I am, I'm in a different position than I was before which, really, I think is the greatest achievement anyone can accomplish; change.
Of course, that and a buck 50 will get you a coffee at Tim Hortons, but societal markers of success don't work so hot for me, as I outlined above. I think I'm at a point where I can understand that the white picket fence future may not be in the cards for me (Which, while being a dull, soul-sucking existence, is also the most secure, and security is a good thing to have); hell, I don't even know at this point if my genes are going to get passed on. But what I do know is that there's something up ahead for me. I hope, in a year, that the blog entry I write will be from a completely different place mentally than I am now; that will be the only thing I will really measure for change between now and then. Life has made it a bit of a habit of tossing spinners {cricket} and curveballs {baseball} at me every so often, and I hope my mental change can help in dealing with one of those the next time I face them, but as long as it's not regression, I'll consider it progress. And I look forward to the day I can say I'm proud of the life I've lived; that is what I ultimately strive for.
I'll close this blog entry with another quote, this one from American Beauty, a 1999 movie with Kevin Spacey. The movie's always had a special place in my heart, mostly because it shows that you can find happiness and beauty around you if you look hard enough, but also because of these closing lines to the movie. I understand better now what he's talking about than I did the first time I saw the movie three years ago, but I hope to one day understand it fully (before ending up, you know, like the main character) Enjoy, and thank you for making it this far.