hello friends! or just empty virtual air space. it is thanksgiving eve and i haven't updated in a while. honestly, i think the title of this blog is quite redundant. tofurky should just be a synonym for "giving thanks". because that's how i feel when i eat it. it feels like a deep, fresh breath of thanks.
lately i've been very content. i still speak and think stubbornly, which i'm working on - okay not really, maybe, sort of - but i'm not upset 24/7 anymore. i don't know if "leveling" is the right word to use, but i guess i've come to terms with the inexplicable sadness in my life. and there are little things, little dreams i have had for years that have recently come true, or started to blossom and turn into truths. like how i know i'm awesome, like how i know i'm talented, and creative, and worth something. and i've come to terms with more difficult things too, like how i may never speak to my sister again, like how i have a crummy relationship with my dad and brother, like how my cat insists on lying on my printer and violently swishing her tail through the blue plastic beads hanging nearby.
as much as i don't like to admit it for the cheesiness factor alone, this time of year makes me very sentimental. not that i'm not always sort of sentimental, but this time of year especially makes me reflect on the past year more than christmas or the actual new year does. and this year, i'm very content. maybe it's the fact that i have overcome so many things that i never thought i could: go to college, live with a roommate, get a job, get a girlfriend, be happy for an extended period of time, etc. i'm not even sure where these things all came from. it seems as if i was dropped into some weird crater of adulthood and i came out morphed as a human being worth the "being".
i often think like this, and then the negatives all hit me at once: thousands of my nonexistant dollars are still due in january for next semester, i need to get on things like internships and volunteer work, i need to stop being so awkward, i need to stop being so ugly/incompetent/stupid. and then something happens, and i straighten my spine and say "fuck it". and i think the something that happens is i think of someone. and that someone i think is really two people. and those two people are the women who led my early immersion program at college, cynthia and yona.
sitting at my squeaky cloth computer chair four or so months back, i groaned at the idea of an early immersion program. they all sounded so lame. i wasn't that interested in baltimore city, i didn't really have an urge to do community service, and i wasn't religious enough for the one called "inspire".. although yes, it had a cool name, i had to admit. plus, the fee of $75 made my bank card, my mother, and my mind shrink in fear. anything over $15 pushed our buttons regardless of the value. but to my mother (and it's catching on to me), knowledge is priceless. that's why we'll struggle with the thousands of dollars due each year for school. and it's paid off already. in inspire and after, yona and cynthia taught me that i'm good enough, and that my best doesn't always need to be exerted, as long as i try. and for that, i couldn't thank them enough. they are two of the most calming people i have ever, ever met.
another one of those calming people is mrs. krett, who was my senior english teacher. i would end up crying to her in the chair next to hers behind her desk about the various mundane aspects of my life, such as "he won't take me to prom" or "i feel so overwhelmed..." "by what?" "nothing. no seriously, nothing." after she handed me the tissue box, she would give me this motherly look with her brow raised. it wasn't a pitying look, but it could have passed for one.
i know mrs. krett just wanted me to be brave. earlier in the year she had commented on how i really had my "shit together" and how she wished she could've done so when she was my age. she saw me get rejected from my top 9 (out of 10) colleges within a 2 week span. she hugged me after each one and let me attempt to disguise my tears of disgust with myself.
i think i'll always remember one thing she told me during a cry session. "you don't have to be happy. it's enough to just be content." and i don't know if she knew how much she impacted me when she told me that. it's my goal to let her know someday, without her laughing, without my voice breaking, and without seeming insincere. i want her to know how much she's changed me, to this day, for me to be able to sit down and extensively blog - something i never ever got the motivation to do - about my life, and about being content. because that's what i am. and i've been working to get to this point ever since she told me that. and i will never stop working.
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