This evening, as I walked towards the dry cleaners to pick up a fantastic sweater that my grandma sent there yesterday, I watched a beautiful sunset. I was so mesmerized by the in-between shades of orange and red that I almost forgot how to move my feet towards the dry cleaners. And in retrospect, I am certain that my new year began then, when I watched the glorious dying sun gracefully sink into the sky like a dancer in her final movements, sinking into the floorboards. My year has sunk gracefully, but it has certainly sunk. I think I can say with full authority and the backing of the 11th grade that December starts with a "d" for a reason.
December was like death, depression, deprecatory statements, deep-down delving into the soul and finding nothing but despair, and also like the digressions that riddled my papers.
November was not much better, more like nothing. There was the poetry workshop, but we had like 2 people besides the editors. Though it felt more cozy, I had also felt like I had failed to get the interest of those who we needed to come. Dance party was the next day, and that was a shitload of nothing. God, I almost want to cry with the shame. What was so funny was that everyone was asking me how it went the next day, and I bitterly laughed, because it seemed to me that for all the people that asked, a few of them could have come. November was a good month to study T.S. Eliot. Life was certainly a wasteland at the time. By the by, T.S. Eliot is amazing, as is W.H. Auden: modern men for the modern times, I think. Anyway, since I seem to be taking a month-by-month study of the year going backwards, I'll continue on with October.
October was overly pumped-up, although I admit I was organized. It was perhaps one of the best months in terms of productivity. I felt like I was accomplishing things. UMOJA was going well, we were meeting, I had stuff on the calendar that I was excited about, it was awesome. Beaver was going well, Emily and I were so on top of things that it was ridiculous. That was awesome.
September was sort of the anticipation month, a trial period of sorts, to check if we were able to even get preliminary things done. We were. But by December we were in over our heads. Ach.
August was family drama month. We had reunion, which is always fun, but then July's family get-together seemed to have added extra stress on my already strained relationships. That was interesting. Enough said.
July was spent researching the family and reconnecting the family in ways that inspired others. Although summer brought great intentions, fall showed the flowers for what they were– the spontaneous sprigs that always come during summer, which always fade by fall.
June was actually fun. I got paid to babysit little children, or so it seemed. And that was my first job. So I felt cool/toolish because I was a little old for first job syndrome. But ach, whatchu gonna do when life happens like that?
I refuse to recall sophomore year. I don't really have that much to recall.
Having gone over my year in such detail, I think that I am prepared to expound on my new plans for this year:
I resolve to:
1. Be more proactive about my own life. I've spent too long being in the backseat. And now suddenly, I have to be the driver, but literally and figuratively. (By the way, I do plan on getting my driver's permit on February 21st, thank you very much.)
2. Take pride in my own achievements. I underestimate myself, and I think it gets in the way of my own talents.
3. Make organization a life choice, not a resolution. Yup. That one seems a little self-explanatory.
4. Make health a life choice, not just a by the way. I realized this year that not sleeping is not helping my work. I refuse to let my schoolwork or my procrastination get in the way of the sleep that I must have to function like a normal person. The earlier the better.
5. Keep God first. It sounds lame, even to my Christian friends, but without him, I am truly nothing. I think that is why I haven't really been able to write the way I used to. Now God is a choice that I have to make, and keep making. That's the hardest part of all. It was easy to choose God when my mom would drive me to church. It was easy to choose God when everyone around me was doing the same thing. But now, it's hard when I am trying to pick between God and sleep. I pick sleep so often that I think God must be pretty pissed. But see, if I just decided that I would go to bed early enough to do what I have to do on Sunday, then this problem would be solved.
6. Make my work a priority. Not just schoolwork, but my poetry and writing skills. I'm used to feeding the fires of my passion almost daily, but with so much work at school, I allow myself to be overwhelmed and allow the cost to be my own personal fire. I can't do that anymore.
7. Be a member of my family. I've been hiding from my immediate family for so long that I feel like when I do see them, it's a shock and I greet them with the disconnected hellos of a stranger.
8. Get a grip.
That's enough for now I think. While I certainly could have posted much more often than I have been, I feel that this hugely verbose post should be enough for most of the readers out there for at least a short amount of time.
Tired. Bed time. It's time to start those resolutions...
