Two Years

Time passes, and things stay the same. I'm still a teenager, I'm still a nerdfighter, I'm still a lot of things, and Esther is still dead.

I wonder when August 25th will lose this morbid significance to me, or if it ever will.

I don't really know how I feel anymore. I miss Esther and I think about Esther, but it doesn't hurt as much as it used to. Often, it doesn't hurt at all, and I think that that's it, I've finally gotten "over it," but then suddenly something will happen or someone will say something and a rush of familiar pain will come back to greet me and I'll wonder how I could have ever thought that the hurting was over.

But today is one of the days in the majority. Anniversary of her death or not, I am okay right now. I am better than okay. Every time I see the date, I am jabbed with a thorn of discomfort, but otherwise it's just another day in my life. And I feel guilty about it. I feel like this should be a day devoted to grieving and remembering Esther, and how dare I be okay?

But I am okay. The world turns. Life goes on. I have happy memories, and I think it's preferable to just leave at it that.

I still think about Esther a lot, but my thoughts have less of an emotional connection to them. I think it's upsetting that I never got to meet her in person, but I'm not exactly upset about it. For a while, it absolutely plagued me that I hadn't taken her condition seriously enough to make every effort to see her, to devote more time to her while she was still alive. Heck, I didn't even go to her funeral, and I wish I had. But there's a difference between acknowledging a desire for something to have gone differently and fretting over it. One is a legitimate examination of the situation, and the other is just pointless. I was fourteen to sixteen during our friendship. Sure, I could have tried harder to travel to Boston from Dallas, but I wasn't exactly in a position to easily make that happen.  And I have accepted that and I have stopped beating myself up about it now that I have two years of emotional distance.

Another thing that I think about a lot is her age. Esther was only a month and a half younger than me, so we were essentially the same age.

You know what I spent today doing? I had a five hour orientation for the Honors program at my university, then I went and hung out at my friends' dorm, talking and laughing and stressing about starting college on Monday. 

There are so many things that Esther didn't get to experience, and the older I get, the more aware I am of the fact that she is forever sixteen.  Her birthday was a few weeks ago. She would have been eighteen, but she didn't make it to adulthood. 

The universe is fickle. 

But I am okay, and I hope she is too, wherever she is. 

Disjointed Hodge-Podge

Right. So I haven't blogged in a couple of days because of Reasons, and I'm sorry. Basically, on Tuesday I was just really busy all day long and literally did not have the time for blogging. And then yesterday I was just lazy/tired.

I mean, I actually have about five half-written blogs in draft form, but I just did not feel like finishing any of them, so I'm going to write some disjointed hodge-podge and post it instead. (Spoiler: you're reading it right now.)

It's gotten to be that late summer time in which the nonstop activity of June and July has stopped, school is on the horizon, but I'm not ready to go back. Or, in this case, just go, as I'm not going back to high school, but onward to college. I really like summer, and I really like freedom, and though I also really like learning, I don't want to go back to that world of textbooks and stress just yet. I feel like I still have so much left to do before summer break's over, but I don't have the energy to do any of it.

Mostly I've just been relaxing (probably a little too much). I've been reading a lot lately, which has been nice.

I'm a lot less ~emotional~ than I was when I last blogged! So that's good.

Yeah, I have nothing else to say, so I'm going to leave you with this video that I saw online today which I found hilarious. It will probably only be funny to you if you have seen The Dark Knight Rises. And, also, I guess it technically has spoilers for the movie? Although not really. But, I mean, if you haven't seen it, and you don't even want the chance of being spoiled, don't watch it.

Laterz.

EMOTIONS

I have been in a bit of emotional turmoil for the past several days, and it's just been really distracting, and I haven't been able to focus on anything, and it's certainly made blogging very difficult, and there are specific things that I want to blog about, but then I feel like I don't have time to write good blogs, but actually I do have time, except I spend most of my time dealing with all these EMOTIONS, so then I don't have time to write the blogs that I want to blog, which is why you get stuck with drivel like this, SORRY.

Sigh.

There's just been a kind of insane confluence of events lately. I mean, I don't feel comfortable going into all of it on here, but there are like five different emotionally trying things attacking me all at once. And I am okay. And I will be okay. I just cannot escape the confines of my cacophonous mind. August really is not a good month, and this particular August is worse for me than most.

I mean, on the whole, I'm doing great though. I have a lot of free time this week. After that, I'm spending a couple of weeks helping my old high school speech and debate team out, and then I start college, which I am super excited for. I've also been spending a bunch of time with my family, which is always nice, because I love them. I've got a couple of tutoring gigs set up during the school year, which is cool, because I've always tutored a lot, and I enjoy it, and recently people have started paying me for it. (I used to insist on just volunteering, but as I'm about to enter the Broke College Student phase of life, I figure that I had better at least charge enough to cover gas costs.*) Also, I have friends, and occasionally I see them. Hurrah for socialization.

But anyway, I'm still just kind of weirdly jittery and unsettled and having a difficult (but not that difficult) time dealing with some THINGS.

Okay, sorry for the word vomit. I'll try to do better tomorrow.

Laterz.

*I'm not even really going to be a Broke College Student during my undergraduate though, because I'm living at home and have a scholarship and stuff. But I plan to go to law school afterwards, and I am going to be astoundingly broke then, so I am saving up as many funds as I can now.

To the Last Battle

I have mentioned before my love for the Wheel of Time, one of my favorite book series. It's epic fantasy and also just generally epic. There have been thirteen books (plus a prequel) released so far, and the fourteenth and final installment, A Memory of Light, is finally being released on January 8, 2013.

And I am pretty freaking excited about it.

When it comes to the Wheel of Time fandom, I joined the game kind of late. The first book came out in 1990, and I became a fan in 2006. But in all fairness to me, I was twelve in 2006, and the books are pretty complex, so I feel like I really could not have become a fan much earlier than that. Nonetheless, I have only had to wait for three books, the two most recent ones, and the one coming out in January.

I absolutely love being part of fan communities. I love theorizing and making new friends and all of that fun stuff. I really hope that there is a midnight release party for A Memory of Light, because those are my favorite kinds of parties. It's just a magical experience to stand in line with others who have the same fervent passion for the series as you do, surrounded by people in costume, and then go home and stay up all night and all day reading this book that you have waited so long for.*

Anyway, leading up to the release, I am rereading all of the previous books in the series, because there is much I have forgotten. (I am also livetweeting my reread, but I don't think anyone who reads my blog also reads the Wheel of Time, but maybe you do, and I just don't know about it!) There's a lot to reread, so that's probably going to consume my free time for the next few months, but I am enjoying myself. After all, I love these books.

It's always crazy and emotional when something that you have invested so much of your life in comes to an end, but as all of us in fandoms know, these things never really end.

A Memory of Light is a story of "the Last Battle," and I cannot wait to get there.

*It is being released while I am on winter break, which is really freaking awesome, because I don't know how I'd be able to manage otherwise.

A Good Day

Right, so I just got home from a concert (Alex Carpenter, Jason Munday, and Landon Austin on their Olympics of Awesome tour), and I have approximately twenty minutes to write something and post it, so forgive me if this blog is a little derpy.

I suppose that I'll just summarize my day for you, because you are clearly so interested in the intricate happenings of my day-to-day life.

This morning, I took my mom and my aunt to the mall, because neither of them like driving (although they can do it just fine). Once at the mall, however, I split off from them to meet up with some of my old friends from the speech and debate team--some who I haven't seen in months, and some who I haven't seen in significantly longer than that. Also my brother, who I had seen about half an hour beforehand. (We were on our high school speech and debate team together. We were even debate partners for a bit.) Anyway, we had a nice time chatting and catching up. We spent a lot of time together in high school and now we're all either in college or about to start college, so it's always nice when we get a chance to catch up.

Then I went home and briefly hung out with my cousin and my aunt and my parents.

And then I went and picked up my friend Laurel, who I had not seen since January, as she has been in Orlando until yesterday. So that was delightful. We went to Buffalo Exchange, which is this cool resale store, and then we went to the aforementioned concert where we met up with some other friends, and we had a generally good time screaming along the lyrics to some exceptionally nerdy music. (I mean, we enjoyed the non-nerdy music too; it's just that the majority of it was pretty nerdy.)

Afterwards we went to 7-11 and got slushies before heading home.

All in all, it was a good day. A hot summer day followed by a slightly less hot, but certainly much sweeter, summer night. :)

Laterz.

Communicating

Ever since I was little, I have wanted to be an author, and ever since I have wanted to be an author, I have wanted to have a pen name. The un-anonymous sharing of my thoughts has always terrified me.

And yet, I have largely lived my life contradictory to that fear. Though I have not blogged recently, my general record of blogging indicates that I do it often and on a variety of topics. I spent the past four years of my life on the speech and debate team, where I was expected to regularly voice and defend my opinions. I'm the student in class with her hand always raised.

I don't consciously try to combat my (rather hidden) crippling fear of speaking out. It just happens. I have a lot to say, and I like to say it, but as soon as it's out there, or if I allow myself to really think about what I'm doing, I'm terrified.

I spend a lot of time reliving conversations and wishing they had not happened. I write a lot of blogs I don't post, and sometimes I have to fight the urge to just private every blog that I have ever written. Because rereading anything that I have written in the past makes me cringe.

I don't know what I'm afraid of exactly. It's not judgement. I genuinely do not care if people think less of me. I think I fear inadequacy. Every time I say or write something to others, I think that it could have been better. I suppose that's why I can't think too much before I speak or before I post a blog, because otherwise I will convince myself that it could be better. More often than people realize (because how could they?), I do think too much. There are a lot of things unsaid and unwritten that I have wanted to communicate. But it is so much safer to leave words snuggled in their beautiful nests inside my head, then to let them fly free.

I don't really think it's a good idea for me to think less before I speak. Sometimes, it's good to stay quiet. But I guess I should try to be less afraid once I have already spoken.

Anyway, this was just on my mind today. Because I think it's strange how afraid I am of communicating publicly, considering how often I do it.

These have been my musings.

Laterz.

On Growing Up

So I am now 18 years old, a high school graduate, and starting college in about three weeks. This is all very weird to me, because I've suffered from a bit of Peter Pan syndrome my whole life. In my mind, I am perpetually a child, and it's strange to look at my life and realize that that's not actually the case.

Sure, I still live with my parents--and plan to through college, as my university is a twenty minute drive from my home--but our relationship is different now. I am, technically, a grown-up.

Growing up really creeps up on you. In the past year, I have done so much of it without even realizing it. This time last year, Facebook suddenly exploded into a frenzy of excitement. Kids my age were posting statuses willy nilly about how "OMG, we're going to be seniors!1!!" I thought that I might be excited for senior year, but when the time came, I found that I wasn't. The thing about time, and the way that it progresses linearly from our perspectives, means that such events feel completely natural, and altogether expected. I was not excited about being a senior because there was nothing novel or particularly fantastic about this event. It was simply the next part of the linear progression of my life.

I tend to feel this way about birthdays, aging, and growing up in general. When you consider something that's far off, you imagine an exciting and new future. But every day that it approaches is another day that prepares you for this new destination. As a freshman in high school, senior year was a hallowed and anticipated thing, but when you are a junior, the thought of being a senior is a lot less odd and feverish than the thought of being a senior is when you are a freshman. I feel that way now about college. Having lived through high school, it feels only natural that I move on to college. But just a year or two ago, I could never have imagined high school ever truly being over. I could never have imagined being an "adult" in the legal sense of the word. It's the kind of thing that seems like it will never happen and then it does. The distant future creeps nearer every day until its standing on your doorstep and then the only reasonable thing to do is to say "come in," because it will proceed uninvited if necessary.*

So aging is, of course, one component of growing up. The other is increased freedom. For me, this truly began when I got a car.

Up until I actually became a high school student, I always thought the idea of having a car in high school was ridiculous. The impression given to me by books and television and movies was that car ownership as a teenager was the exclusive luxury of spoiled brats. And hey, maybe in the 90s, that was true! Either that, or I just happened to consume a lot of similarly nuanced media.

Anyway, in suburban Texas, that's definitely not the case. In fact, the lack of public transportation, the sprawling, never-ending expanse of geography, and the heat make having access to a car a bit of a necessity. I mean, it's not like you can't survive without one. But it's difficult.

So I ended up getting a car just in time for my senior year. Now, by that time, I'd already had my driver's license for a little while, and considering that I had gotten my driver's permit when I was fifteen, I had already been driving for two years. So I did not expect having a car to be a particularly life-changing experience. After all, my dad was really good about letting me borrow his car whenever I needed to go somewhere, so I thought that I had an idea of what the experience was like.

But, by golly, having my own car was a very new and different experience. Suddenly the world was laid open before me, ready to dance to whatever song I played. I could go wherever I wanted whenever I wanted, and it's amazing how dramatically that changes one's life. It opened doors to all kinds of new adventures, and was one of the only things that made my senior year fun. (I had a generally hellish senior year.)

So the freedoms and responsibilities of adulthood don't feel strange to me, because I stepped into these shoes slowly. It's just the realization that I am, indeed, an adult that occasionally terrifies me. I realize that I'm still relatively young, but suddenly it feels like the future is stepping on my toes. It's scary to think that my childhood is officially over, and every missed opportunity is now truly out of reach. It's scary to think that I am considered differently by society now than just two months before.

I was never the kid who said, "I can't wait until I am such-and-such age." I was always happy with waiting. I understood that youth is fleeting, and I wanted to enjoy every moment. I reveled in childhood, in being able to get away with things because I was a kid. It's scary that I can't have that back. It's going to be even scarier two years from now when I'm not even a teenager anymore.

But I'm not complaining. There are merits to all ages. I didn't wish to be a different age when I was younger, and I certainly don't intend to start now. There are grander adventures ahead of me.

Plus, I get to vote. Which is really really cool. I am going to vote for every gosh darn teeny tiny thing that I am allowed to vote for. I am going to vote so freaking much. God, I love voting. I haven't done it yet, but I love it.

Laterz.


*Remember how I ramble? Let's pretend that you love me for it.

Season Three

Wow. So it's been a while since I've been around. Blog Every Day in April was clearly a failed attempt, and I followed up beautifully by not blogging for the next three months.

But now BEDA has returned in its August form and I would like to try again. Once upon a time, I blogged regularly, and I enjoyed it. Here's hoping that I'm back from hiatus for good.

A lot has happened since you last saw me. I graduated high school. I went to Panama. I turned eighteen. I went to VidCon. I got my International Baccalaureate diploma. My family from Bangladesh is visiting. It's Ramadan. I'm starting college in twenty-six days.

It saddens me that I really did not blog during my senior year of high school, but to be fair, I was insanely busy during most of it. My life has a bit of a whirlwind tendency, and sometimes I find it difficult to catch my breath.

I've had a great summer so far. It's the first summer in a long time where I haven't had to worry about summer homework, and I've been enjoying it greatly.

Tomorrow, I'll write a long blog on some specific subject, but for tonight, welcome to Season 3 of Through the Wardrobe.

Laterz.