Learning to Live

I attended my sister’s graduation ceremony earlier this week.  She graduated with high honors as a member of the National Honors Society, top of her class, and will be attending a small university on the Presidential Scholarship (i.e. full tuition).  She was informed this morning that she’ll be living in a beautiful suite with her new roommate on the Honors floor (so much for crappy dorm life!).

Anything high-school related always makes me reminisce about my high school days.  I very much don’t like to think about high school; I didn’t like the person I was back then.  I was immature and arrogant, and I didn’t hide that I was annoyed by a lot of the students around me.  I’m afraid of the impression I left on my peers.  I think I could have positively influenced a lot of the less-fortunate students around me had I displayed a better attitude, but now, two years later, it’s too late.

As I sat during the ceremony, I did well to remember that this was my sister’s special day, not mine, and I kept my focus on her happiness rather than my bad memories.  But at the end of the walking ceremony, God took a moment to remind us of the important things in life.

Near the end of my high school career, a sophomore boy named Kevin woke up one day to find he was paralyzed.  Because of its immediacy, it was first thought to be a spider bite, but further investigation revealed a brain tumor in an obviously very bad part of the brain.  He was given weeks to live.

That was two years ago.

I never knew Kevin personally, but I knew his story.   He made it a goal to walk across the stage with the rest of his class at his graduation ceremony.  After 544 graduated students had crossed the stage, the principal announced Kevin’s name, and the entire Class of 2012 erupted in shouts and applause.

Slowly but surely, he rose from his wheelchair and crossed the stage with the aid of a walker, the standing ovation never ceasing.

Every day our lives change, little by little, with the situations we face and the decisions we make.  Kevin accepted life’s lemons  and fought it.  He graduated high school against all odds.  I think if Kevin can beat a deadly brain tumor, I can deal with any mistakes I’ve made in the past.

Things that matter, things that don’t.

It’s working…

(Source: eldestsalvatore)

(Source: llaann-solo)

I met The Loner through a party hosted by a mutual friend.  I got exactly what I’d wanted after things ended with Ex#2: the excitement of chasing a new relationship.

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Sometimes I’m embarrassed when I think about my second relationship.  Not because of whom I was with, but because I was so incredibly serious with someone whom everyone else knew wasn’t right for me.  But, I’m not so sure it wasn’t more than a crush.

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My first relationship happened when I was sixteen, just a sophomore in high school.  I don’t remember much about the relationship itself, but I know that he was a great guy and a great boyfriend.  We lived only 45 minutes away, but since neither of us owned a car, it was basically long-distance.  He was very sweet and romantic and clearly enjoyed our innocent alone time.  But sometimes the things I’d normally reserve for alone time would leak into public time; nothing huge and not even anything that would really bother anyone, but if I were to drop his hand, refuse a kiss, or not cuddle in a restaurant booth, he would be offended.  Back then I thought I wanted a serious relationship, but upon further review, I didn’t.

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I’m feeling a bit nostalgic, mostly concerning previous relationships.  I’m going to start a personal diary that will have more detail than my blog posts, but I feel keeping everything a secret would defeat the purpose of this type of blog.  We should take notes on the experiences of others and apply it to our own to better understand this phenomenon we call life.

Now that I’m single, there’s been a lot of time to dissect the memories I have of my three major past boyfriends, which we’ll call Ex#1, Ex#2, and Ex#3.  You never realize how much you learned about life, love, and yourself until you’re far enough removed to take a (mostly) unbiased examination of your past experiences.

My next three posts will be mildly detailed looks into those relationships and will examine what I learned from them.  This is probably more for my benefit than anyone else’s, but hey, it can’t hurt.

I’m in one of those moods where I’m not sure what to do with myself.  I have some things I would like to do: 

• Start a journal
• Finish a short story
• Watch a few episodes of Smallville or Vampire Diaries

And then I have those things that I should do:

• Go to the grocery store
• Run a 5k
• Get in some more work hours at the cyclotron

So, naturally, why not sit here and write a pointless Tumblr post?  It’s obviously the only sensible thing to do.