Friday, September 5, 2008

Summer assessment(s)

There's always that one day when you're looking through your really old pictures and you see one of you from a few years before and almost have a heart attack because you look so different. Looking at yourself in the mirror everyday, you don't see that much of a change. Or, in the case of Gregor Samsa in Metamorphosis (thank you AP English), you wake up as a giant insect. And at that point, I think I would be stepping back to assess how exactly I had gotten to this place.
Well, this is me waking up and realizing I'm a bug. Figuratively.

Over the summer, I learned a lot of things. I learned that you don't really always love someone, like, love love. Of course they're always a part of your past, but there's a moment when you're looking into someone's eyes, remembering what it was like with them, and you realize that it doesn't sting. You don't long. You simply appreciate it, and them. And you feel yourself shift into a new phase.
I learned what it's like to be around people that I have not grown up with. People who know nothing about me. It's intriguing to find that the things that were said to me, that my friends say to me all the time, become offensive coming from a stranger's mouth. Because they don't know that it's not true. They don't know of my perfectionism. They don't know of my school life, or home life. It's an entire realm that I am completely unfamiliar with.
I learned who I am. In a way that I did not expect. It wasn't when I broke away from my depression at the beginning of the summer that I discovered who I was. It wasn't when I lived for myself and did what I wanted to do. It was when I began to fall back into my old habit of becoming what others want or expect me (or anyone really) to be. Why should I act a certain way for someone (because that's the type of person that they're into), when I could just find someone's who is into my type. Sounds cliche, and yeah I should know this, but it takes a few hard experiences for someone to really understand the depth of that statement. In the realization that one is changing for someone else, and that all in all, that can never make a person eternally satisfied, that person can understand, defend, and become who they really are. I myself was simply lucky enough to find someone who loves me for who I am, and I wasn't even trying. No being his idea of me. Just being me, showing him what I really was, flaws and all.

And some final thoughts, on guard and other things that dominate most of my thoughts:
Katie made a comment to me about being worried about the guard next year. I told her that we worry because we know that we cannot control it in any way. The only control that we have over next year's guard is what we leave behind now. If it is good, they will use it. If it is not, they will do it a different way, their way, but not necessarily the right way. It's the difference between being a captain, and a great captain. How long will our legacies last? Will we drive others to be better like those before us drove, greatly drove, us? Truly impressive accomplishment isn't what you can do when you're present. It's what you can continue to do after you're gone.
How inspiring and insightful. I think I'll leave it at that.

Peace and <3.

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