the new year

so i'm going to fall for the whole "i'm going to be sentimental and talk about what the old year was like and what the new year is going to mean to me." because the new year started quietly and a little sadly. the past year was the toughest and saddest i've ever had. i don't know where i got this analogy but it stuck with me because it expressed the way i thought of life exactly. work, family, friends, love, and every aspect of life was a glass ball and the trick to it was to juggle them all and make sure they don't break. i feel like i skated through the past eighteen years with nothing on my shoulders. then this year hit and i had my hands in my pockets, or at least too full to catch them when they fell. i dropped each one and now they're full of tiny little cracks that i've got to mend. not a single one of them escaped breaking.

2006 tested how strong i was. i mean, family, friends... to sum up in two words how bad the year got, nikki died. you'd think i'd anticipate that after i saw how bad it got but nope. that's youth being an idiot, thinking we're invincible. there's a part of me that's never gonna get over that because he was one of the few people who could see when i was bummed and could make me feel okay that i wasn't smiling for five seconds and that just coz i laughed didn't mean i wasn't feeling like crap. he was someone you could be you with and that's rare. and there's a part of me that's never going to start kicking myself for being so freaking selfish that i couldn't tell him just once that if he was that tired, he really didn't have to hang on for everyone coz we could take care of ourselves. of course, he'd say he wasn't gonna give up but that's nikki for you. i'd be lucky and blessed if i were that strong.

and the rest of the stuff i went through, well, i'll keep that to myself.

all the superstitions for new year, like wearing polka dots and stripes, hanging on to a ceiling for height, making sure you're extra nice that day because that'll set the tone for the new year... well, quite frankly, i think it's idiotic and funny. but i'll indulge it because anything you can grab on to make you feel better, anything that'll make you feel hope? well that's worth a lot, in my book. but i can't really take the concept of a new year seriously. a new year never always means a new start. it just means the calendar's been set back to january with a different digit hanging off the end of the year. that's it. and the idea of the first day of the year being the basis for every single day of the rest... that's stupid. i'm not going to be hungry every lunchtime or annoyed i missed my show or grumpy every time i wake up (no, wait, that's the one thing that'll hold true always). everyday's going to be different, different actions, different moods, different choices, different.

i was going to try out for that guidon contest, the essay about what you'd tell your ten year old self. but i got stuck with so many choices. i could write about how life gets harder, how life gets more complicated, how life gets worth it. but there's only so many things you can say to a ten year old that they'll understand and they're all equally important. so what i'd tell my ten year old self and hope i'd understand is that life is choice. every darn thing about the world is a choice. the one thing that struck me and stopped me from writing that essay was my answer. i had too many choices.

a conversation with a friend got me thinking about choices and being fickle. i looked up fickle in the dictionary, it means erratic changeableness especially with regards to affections or attachments. and i don't think i really believe in the word fickle. why is there such a bad connotation to the word fickle? is it a crime to not know your own mind because you have so many options in front of you that you can't decide? if we all knew what we wanted, we'd be dead and in heaven. or at least in hell, because that would be so darn boring. there's always the thrill in changing your mind, the eureka moment when you realize that something is a better fit for you. that moment is one of those few enlightened times that you're one step closer to the neverending "who am i?" of life.

it's funny how a lifetime can feel like a whole dozen lifetimes. my dad dug up his old high school yearbooks and who would think my dignified, staid, really corny dad was a football quarterback mvp and a wrestler? or that he played lead roles in musicals? or that he was a bird-watcher (no, wait, i can imagine that. it's hella boring). see what i mean? why is a lifetime a lifetime... but you go through so many changes in life that you're not the you you started as. i read somewhere (a little hokey if you ask me) that you change your personality every seven years. if it were true, that explains a lot. i'm nineteen and i've gone through several changes in my life that the me who started out isn't me. or is it? (i'm getting confusing, haha) my teachers thought i could sing, i could be a ballerina, i could be a swimmer, i could be a debater, i could be an architect. and i'm none of those things now. several changes and i'm nineteen. if my personality were food, i'd be a shake.

i guess if i had to believe in fickleness, i couldn't possibly apply it to the real important things in life. fickle can be infatuation or adultery, in annoyance and a waste of money. but i can't possibly think of fickle as bad when you're thinking about the real person. life and people and progress present you with so many options that ordering a coffee is a freaking chore, buying an appliance is nerve-wracking and a word has so many different meanings to it... and you're not allowed to be fickle? then cut off life then coz you don't need the choices. it's gotten to the point that even not making a choice is a choice.

so ten year old abs, life in this current quarter life crisis of mine just means choices. tons and tons of choices of stupid things and little things and ginormous life-changing things. everything will start out from what YOU choose to do, and all the hardship and pain and happiness and love comes from your choice. and don't be scared of making the wrong ones because you could never lose yourself underneath all those choices, because it's not possible to be fickle about yourself. the things that make you you are the same things that still make me me. i still would rather sleep 3/4ths of my life away, stay up until 2a.m, maintain my sweet tooth, read everything and anything, be sarcastic and cynical and be a go-to rock. so i trust your choices are good ones.

what i'm driving at, i guess, i that this year, i think i only have one resolution. not just for the year but for the rest of my twisted, crazy, loopy, fickle life. i've just got to remember that life is a choice and it's my choice.