Lessons Learned

Things I've learned this year:

We can't force people to be who we want them to be. We can push and prod them into the vision we've had, the idea we've conceived, but that won't them make them the ideal. We'll just be disappointed when we realize that we've been clinging to a dream.

Dating is messy. Enough said.

I shake when I'm mad. Seriously. I physically shake. I had to pull over the car at one point. Poor Maggie can attest to that. I made her sit in the parking lot of an ice cream parlor for literally an hour, blasted the heat, and had to be talked down before I could drive again.

I have awesome friends. Dude. I had no idea how awesome they all were. I had no idea how much my team -- yes, I am a debate nerd, whatever -- means to me, and how much they can be there for me. How much I fit with the people I love. It's kind of cool.

Ice cream cannot solve everything. However, writing is like, the best therapy ever.

People are way crazier than I thought. And they aren't all like me. I based what people would do off of what I would do, and then was shocked when they did something different. When sometimes, they did scummy stuff. It's interesting. I'm not perfect, but I'm relatively grounded. It's freaky how many people really, really aren't.

When something is poison, it's always going to be poison. And pretending it might turn into nectar or gold or hell, even diet coke, is just naive.

Someone called me whimsical today. It's funny, though. I'm really not. I talk about pandas and monkeys and sparkles, but I'm fully aware of the hurt in the world. I didn't win districts by giving speeches about sequins. I think it's just about learning to cope and moving on; dwelling on the pain is just gonna make more darkness.

Books get a lot of things right. I just didn't realize how real a lot of emotions are.

But more than anything?

There's always light at the end of the tunnel. There's always green grass and shiny skies, and there's always sparkles in the future. Life is what we make it. We can't be happy unless we move on. We can't move on unless we keep our eyes on what's in front of us, and not stuck on all the crap that we've been trenched in.  Sometimes we just have to be -- well, whimsical. Jump around, listen to music, dream about tomorrow.

Closing doors opens windows. It forges new hallways and busts down walls that had been so long, we'd just grown used to the fact that they were blocking off new worlds. Worlds that are just as good and maybe better than the ones we live in.

Someday, the crap that has been this year will be a great book. And until then, it's made me stronger. It's hurt and it's sucked, but it's over -- I'm making it be over. And I'm going to relish Nationals in debate, relish writing, reading, relish my library and my friends and all of the great, great things in my life. I'm worth more than how I've been feeling. How I've let myself be treated. But the only way to write great books, I guess, is to live a little bit of crap.
So.

More later. Promise, it won't be gushy or personal. I just kinda felt like putting this out there would make it more real. Basically, you are my bouncing board. Be proud. :P
What about you? Adversity teaches us things. What have you learned?