Valentine's Day Alone

So…I don’t have a date this Valentine’s Day (or anything resembling a date). I know surprising (not really). So being alone on Valentine’s Day means one of two things: I can mope around, watch romantic comedies, drink alone, feel sorry about myself, and eat an entire pan of brownies or I can make this day about what it is supposed to be: love. Just because I don’t have someone special in my life doesn’t mean that I don’t have things or people that I love. I love writing and reading and drinking tea. I love finding and trying new and healthy recipes. I love my old friends who tried their best to hold on to a person that had changed and didn’t quite fit anymore and love my new friends who took me in even though I was obviously broken. I love my parents who have spent their money and their lives trying to make my life as perfect as possible. I love my brother who I don’t always get along with but always had my best interests at heart. I love the person I am becoming, someone kind and smart and beautiful. I love the beauty of calculus and physics and all the science of everyday things.  I love life at this time more than I have ever loved it before and I think that’s the key to loving someone else. 

The thing about life is sometimes it’s impossible to find the good in it. A day of awkward encounters, mean words, and stressful work and other times perfection in the smallest meaningless things; standing in an empty parking lot as the snow falls softly from the sky, beautiful, inhuman, without expectations, for itself or me. A moment that although already ending feels like it will go on forever. Or this moment writing in a hallway busy with life, drinking a hot cup of tea, a pink pen. Moments I wish I could enjoy in the moment. The thing about life is it is made up of moments. And maybe in this moment my pants are too tight and there is a hole in my left sock, and I need to wash my hair. But this moment is also a moment where I watch two people across the hallway connect. A moment where I overhear a conversation between two loved ones. A moment where I see a tired woman sit down with relief. It is a moment of life and that is the very most I can ask of it. 

I don’t want to be a main character. Let me explain. I read a lot, watch a lot of TV, and movies and I write, or at least I try to. I know a lot about protagonists, antagonists and main characters in general. They are fully rounded people with strengths and weakness. There are also subsequent characters, which are often flat, showing only one emotion, or defining characteristic. They serve their purpose and then they are gone from the story. Readers or watchers often only remember them for one particular reason, whether it be their excitement or information or something else more interesting and prevalent to the story. Sometimes when I watch TV or read a book, I identify with one of the main characters but I want to identify with a flat character. I want to disappear into a crowd. Be a character in a story that a reader forgets before they forget the part they played in the story. I don’t want to be a round character with a full range of emotions; it’s hard to have a full range of emotion. I always feel like I stand out, awkward and extremely aware of who I am and what I am doing. I want to forget. I want to be remembered for my excitement, my information and then forgotten. 

No one appreciates a day of doing nothing. I don’t mean likes sleeping, doing nothing. I mean reading a book, watching a chick-flick, drinking a cup of tea, doing nothing kind of day. I like going out, having fun with friends but more than anything I like doing nothing. 

Sleepovers

The thing about sleepovers is they stop being about sleeping after a certain age. They start being about drinking or boys or drinking with boys. When we were little the idea of staying up late at a different person’s house terrified us. When we got older the idea of boys and alcohol scared us. But we faced our fears with pillows and sleeping bags and later with spin the bottle and cheap vodka. This didn’t come without its embarrassing moments. Unfortunately for me it involved a lot of puking. First at my friend’s house in the first grade and a bad cause of the stomach flu and later on the white carpet of my best friend’s house with the help of wine coolers and vodka. We used these moments and the friends we trusted to face our greatest fears: the dark, being away from home, using the substances we were always told we shouldn’t, kissing boys we were told to stay away from, sneaking out of houses we were supposed to be in. They were a part of growing up and although some of us skipped a few steps we all have our good memories (and our bad) from our sleepovers. 

I want to do everything,  I want to be happy.

I go to a very good high school, and I am grateful for my education. When you enter high school, suddenly you are bombarded with questions about what you want to do for the rest of your life. And when you enter a very good high school the only expectable answer is college, a major in something practical, and a stable, long lasting career. On New Year’s Eve I reconnected with a guy I used to know.  I found out that in the year we had not spoken he had moved to New Zealand and was doing amazing, inspiring things. I started thinking about what I had done in that same year and realized I was in almost the same place I started the year in, which was not to say a good place. And you see this friend he didn’t go to Minnetonka High school, he went to a public school in Minneapolis. His life after high school was not mapped out by generations of family members and expectations from parents. He got to choose his future. There is a theory in sociology that human beings are born with many talents and societies and cultures such as those in America force human beings into a single talent. Most people are unhappy in this aspect because it means that they are not living up to their full potential.  I like physics, and writing, and genetics and cooking. I don’t want to choose. I think college is the right choice for me, and maybe that is because I was raised with that belief that college was important, and it is. And to do any of the things I want to do I need an education but I don’t want to be unhappy doing only one thing. I want to do everything. 

I am a bit of a hypochondriac. Now hear me out; I do have a lot of ailments for a seventeen year old. I have terrible allergies, asthma, my digestive system doesn’t really digest very well, and I get horrible migraines. But I have this ability to go from headache to brain tumor before you can say neurologist. I worry and not to brag but I'm really good at it. I worry constantly about my health, my family, my friends, people I don't know, clothes, homework, college. Do you like my new hair color, do I like my new hair color, I don't know but I'm worried about it. Literally anything you can think of. And I think it’s kinda ruining my life. I have so much going on in my head it’s really hard to live in the real world. I think the key is to want to, and I'm working on that.