Life's little lessons

As I enjoyed my mostly blogless fall break, I did several things that I don't normally do: first, I videotaped myself trimming my toenails, and second, I revisited the Matrix sequels, two films which I quite enjoy, but haven't watched in well over two years.

While the toenails are a bit harder to explain, the movies are the sum of the remainder of an unbalanced equation inherent to the programming of the Matrix. Plus, I really like them, in spite of what everyone else on Earth thinks of them. Concordantly, I got a rush of nostalgia from watching them, and suddenly remembered a ton of stuff pertaining to the two years before my senior year of high school. Vis-a-vis, forensics, theatre, journalism, mixed chorus, English 11, precalculus, and some other stuff, all rushed back into my mind. But there was a problem: all I could remember of the subjects were bullet points. There was nothing of substance in my memories, no recollection of the events, just the facts that I wrote such and such a column, and that I made it to state, but didn't qualify for finals.

It was some time in the middle of my watching The Matrix Revolutions that I got an email from an old friend of mine, who graduated back in 2004. Actually, he was much more than a friend. He was certainly something that I would call an idol. He was valedictorian of his class, he could act, dance, sing, place in state finals, everything. And it was at that point that I felt, "Wow... There's something behind this."

And so I went for my trademark walk around the cross-country track. I go out there a lot, when I need to think about things that are going on in my life, and this was certainly something. I began talking out loud to myself, concerned primarily about the fact that 2004 was rushing back to me, yet I couldn't remember any of it, and that since it was decidedly the last year before the major life changes began to take place, it held some significance in my current predicament.

And I made some important discoveries on my walk, mostly that it's fun to yell things in a public area while nobody else is around. But the revelation I feel like I was meant to make didn't come until Monday. I had just gotten back to my dorm from lunch, and was watching some of the specials on the second disc of Revolutions when I discovered as I walked to my sink to brush my teeth that my sink was nearly full of rust-infested water. Long story short, some calls were made around, and then the plumber on campus came in to look at my sink, remove the U-bend, stick a snake tube in to remove the obstruction, realize that the obstruction was much further down than he had thought, get a bigger snake tube to go further down, and finally unclog my sink.

It was after all this, as I was brushing my teeth, that I figured out what I was supposed to learn from all this: when you don't like the way something is, change it.

I'm sure that all of you are probably zOMG'ing about that no-duh revelation, but honestly, it wasn't something I had considered before. I was so used to letting myself believe that things in life will happen how they will happen, and that there isn't much that we can do about any of the circumstances we find ourselves in, but there it was, a solution to my sink problem.

And maybe there is merit to try, trying again. As much grief as I gave the concept in one of my earlier posts, the obstruction was cleared after the plumber went and got a different tool.

And I think that's what made me a happier person before my snior year of high school. I didn't accept circumstances as they were, I set out to achieve my goals even if I was afraid to do so. I think that's what I need to do now. I need to fix things that I have problems with, even if it'll take a little work.

Ergo, I hereby rescind any and all times in which I might have said that "this is just how things go."

How far I've come

There are defining moments that we each hit over the years. Events that, however big or small, somehow stick within us as more prominent than the rest of our story. I remember my first day of school as being fairly rainy on the drive down to the strange H-shaped buildings that formed the complex that my first elementary school was. I remember that my bullies' names through the years were Rachel, Justin, Kelley, Molly, Spencer, Spencer, Spencer, and Spencer. I remember that The Lion King had a scene with just a ton of orange on the movie screen.

And as easy as it is to call up some memories, there are other events in my life that I can't remember so well.

Before my junior year of high school, The Matrix Reloaded came out in theaters. And I'd watch that movie so often I could recite something like the first ten or fifteen minutes of it. Remembering that made me think that my junior year was my absolute nerdiest year.

But thinking back on that year, I realized that I actually couldn't remember... nearly any of it. And that freaked me out a bit. Not because I blanked out on an entire year, but because what I do remember of it tells me that it was a pretty good year. I was Le Fou in Beauty and the Beast, I went to state in forensics that year, I... heh, I think that was the year that my friend James managed to get the entire cafeteria to applaud me (though I'm sure a good number of them didn't know that they were applauding me).

And yet, the only reason I remember that last bit is because my friend James reminded me of the event in the first few days of him being here at college. And as for what being in Beauty and the Beast was like... I really can't explain it to you. My forensics stint? I only really remember practicing in front of the class and then not making it to finals at State.

I feel like I should be disturbed. That was arguably the best year I'd ever had, and so much of it is lacking in clarity. And I feel like maybe the reason I can't remember any of it is because of things that came after it. So much happened, in my senior year of high school alone, to reshape what I was then into what I am today. And when I think back on my junior year, I feel like I was so carefree then, so much younger in the sense of my mentality, than now.

If I could physically go back, and see who I was then as I am now, what would I see?