2013 and all of its glory

2013 was a year of firsts for me, a year of irreplaceable experiences and a year that held the beauties and heartbreaks of change. 

In 2013:

-I walked away from basketball, the love of my life and a sisterhood I never realized existed until we were huddled together in the creepiest, grossest hotel room following the worst exhibit of basketball I have ever seen and crying our eyes out…together.

-I graduated high school--as a valedictorian and stood in front of all my peers I tried so hard to be one with and realized we, had in fact made it as one. 

-I realized sometimes even the best things begin to have flaws as being an idfy camp counselor this year brought misery and feeling like I was a bottom feeder to adults, but ended with the remaining few of us banding together and giving those who brought us down a hypothetical middle finger. 

-I won a championship which, even as an advocate of the "winning isn't everything" motto, felt pretty freaking awesome. 

-I was rushed to the emergency with "distressed lung lining" of overdoing my activities…The next day I hiked to the top of a mountain and jumped off a cliff. #cantstopme

-I got drunk for the first time which resulted in the strangest, most liberating night of my life with my two longest friends. (It also brought the most miserable morning after)

-I found my best friend in a friend and Jacob and I proceeded to burn bridges and have the best summer of our entire lives and will forever be soul mates (sexless soul mates, we run for different teams)

-I packed up all of my things and moved 938 miles away to a city where I didn't know one person. 

-I met the most beautiful, strong, broken, intelligent, sassy, strange girl and she has become my closest, most unique friend and I love her more than I thought it was possible to love someone.

-I met a boy who, despite his tendencies to forget to eat and the glasses that fall right off his face, is beautiful and kind and someone I never realized I needed or would ever be so lucky to have in my life. 

-I decided that "happy New Year" is almost nearly as charming as "happy birthday" and I think it is beautiful we have a day to celebrate our lives and our futures and our pasts, as fucked up or boring as they may be.

Also, screw resolutions. Just do you the best way you can<3

Being Who You (Think) You Have To Be

"College will be a fresh start." 

This can be such a dangerous thing to tell people.

As my first semester at University approaches its close, I can't help looking around at all my new friends and wondering who they really are. 

As I look over myself these past four months, I definitely don't recognize that girl. 

There are definitely aspects to my character that I have improved so well on, aspects I saw as my biggest flaws growing up. 

I can't help missing the girl who favored being alone, the girl who saw solitude not as loneliness, but as a way to delve into beautiful stories of fiction and lay on the floor, lost in a song. 

I miss the girl who lived for a game of basketball.

I miss the girl who favored long term accomplishment over moments of temporary happiness. 

I made a friend in September who I have been crushed out on, who I have wanted to crush, who I both love and hate, who I have seen lights of utter beauty but who has let me down again and again. A friend that can change my day with just a raise of his eyebrows and a stare into my eyes or for the worse with a lack of acknowledgment. 

He is struggling with his character, like the rest of us. He has this idea of who it is he needs to be, feeling as if he needs to leave what he was behind because it wasn't wanted by who he needed it to be most. I see glimpses of this boy sometimes; in a hand movement, in a gaze, as he drifts off to sleep, when he runs to his sisters, I hope he can find this person again someday. 

That person is good enough. 

The real you is good enough. 

Yes, I'm talking to all of you. 

you hear it all the time, but yet again, I will stress there is someone so near to you that wants the real you more than anything in the world. <3