The one about approval.

 It seems as though the approval of other equivalent and persistently pessimistic humans puts our very morality at stake.
 If we were made to seek approval from others, we would die in spiral of unfathomable promises and decimated hopes. Like a cup of over-steeped tea, the bitterness could not be overshadowed by the honey of approval. Individuals who are, by all appearances, oblivious to the disappointment of the people around them put off a reckless air that they uphold with an outwardly invincible finesse. You know the type of people I've just described. They hold their heads proudly come hell or high water, and discipline, even of the most stringent sort, causes no apparent irreparable damage to them.

 I am never absolute on the best handling procedure for this type. I tend to ignore them until they drag my miffed expression into their tomfoolery. Now, these people, typically though not always male, vary in age. I'm reading the Harry Potter books to my younger brothers, and these young delinquents tend to blurt out spoilers such as "Snape's the half blood prince" and "Dumbledore dies" at no gain to themselves. Troublemakers like these who have only watched the movie and proceed to soil the experience for my brother make me twitch with indignation.

This year, summarized.

From this day one year ago to this day, I have grown and changed in many, many ways. I’ve experienced love,  and on the opposite end of the spectrum, heartbreak. I thought I knew so much before this year, and now I know that I know nothing. This year, continuously, I would feel as though I had it all together and the moment I felt collected, someone unceremoniously yanked the carpet of reality from under my feet and I fell flat on my face. This year has been a war of staying balanced on that rug that I never felt as though I could trust.

On April 16th, 2012, I lived in a house in New Oxford in a lovely, ignorant calm before the ensuing storm. Then we heard that there was a house we’d likely be moving into. I got excited because I like those kind of changes and I was ready to be in a much better location as it looked like this house would be. While my parents bravely endured the battle with the financing company, I was able to relax and focus on finals. Eventually, the company promised us that we could move in by the end of August and we listened to them. At the end of the month, we moved out of that house and went on a two-month homeless adventure. We switched from tents to yurts to cabins to friend’s houses to my grandparent’s houses. Eventually we talked to the owner of the house, signed papers on the hood of a truck in Hanover and moved in  that evening.

I can not present to you how I have grown this year without factoring death into the equation. I attended eight funerals this year, six of them family. The two that struck me the most, (if I was to pick two, because they were all really sad) were my Aunt Heather, who died suddenly after simply “not feeling well” and my Uncle Mark who committed suicide. Words don’t seem to be enough to say how that affected me this year.Especially the latter was the loss of a close friend that I never saw coming. Then, the rug of reality was brutally ripped from underneath me again.

But out of all this turmoil, this heartbreak, this fear and these tears comes a new chapter. I developed a relationship with his best friend, and I’ve stayed close to Amy, his fiance. I am surrounded by amazing people, and they showed me that I am, even when I’ve   emotionally lost my cool and mentally couldn’t remember what I had just read or heard. Some of my friends who took an interest in my emotional healing took me out and taught me to snowboard. Some people say that snowboarding is for punks, but I don’t think so. For me it’s more than a fun thing,it will always stand in my memory as a few hours when I couldn’t stop smiling in a time when I hadn’t truly smiled for weeks.

I love games. Pretty much all kinds of games. Sports, board games, mind games, card games etc. I love to read fiction even more. Sometimes I spend so much time reading fiction and playing games that I forget that school is important too. This year, I think AP and CC have helped me develop away from my game-playing obsession, though it never worked me out of my fiction reading fetish.

I was baptised on June 21st, 2011 and I’ve grown much closer to God since then. There was a phase when I questioned God, and was even mad at him, in the week when I attended two funerals. I learned that he was there, though. He had to drag me along my Christian walk sometimes to keep me going, but he was always there. I learned that trusting him is hard, but not impossible.

Last year tested my emotional capacity.

I lost much that was important to me. I learned that while I can not ignore my losses, I need to focus on the future. There are so many amazing things ahead, and likely terrifying things, but I will embrace them and add them to this crazy thing called life. I know myself better than I did one year ago, and I should not have written as much about myself if there were anyone whom I knew better. I am me, conveniently.

I’ll close with some song lyrics;
Everybody wants to slap your back, wants to shake your hand when you’re up on top of that mountain. But let one of those rocks give way, then you slide back down. Look up, and see who’s around then. When the water’s high, when the weather’s not so fair, when the well runs dry - who will be there? That’s when you find out who your friends are.