Conclusions (They’re Still Far Off)

It’s easy to say that the end of the year marks the end of a chapter of our lives; but what does that say about our lives? That they are so tidy that we can simply sum everything – all of our experiences, growth, joys and disappointments – into a single 12 month period? I don’t like the sound of that. The neat freak inside me head hates to admit it, but life is messy.

To say that we’ve come to some kind of conclusion seems a little ridiculous. The things that happened in the last year are ends once frayed in years past and beginnings of things to come. Everything is continuous. Everything and everyone is tangled up intimately with this thing – life.

Things aren’t ending or beginning today anymore then they did yesterday or will tomorrow.

But – because we inevitably do think that this time of year is the conclusion of one chapter and the beginning of another – it is a convenient time to make resolutions for the new year. Yet I can’t help but feel like we only betray ourselves and our hopes when we make resolutions.

To change in the time it takes to make another trip around the sun just by setting a goal for ourselves: doesn’t that seem a little foolish of ourselves? Most people make their resolutions as the result of some kind of compulsion or another. Why not make a resolution that means something?

This time last year, I pledged to read a certain Book everyday. And up until August or September, I kept up with that. I like making resolutions; I like the idea of improving upon last year’s shortcomings.

Resolutions are tough to stick with though. They require immediate action and dedication. Not compulsion. They have to be realistic, or otherwise alter your reality to conform to them. They’re often lofty goals we know we’ll never reach.

A recent favorite blogger I’ve been following has a solution to this. Jeff Goins said: “A resolution is something you make. Resolve is something you have.” I like that. Resolving is more than a resolution; it’s the difference between wanting to turn away from our past follies and actually turning away from them.

I have a few ideas of things I would like to get done in 2012; starting a real writing project, going on a People to People trip, riding in PanMass. Then there things I need to get done: finding a college, a major, a career… and doing my Eagle Project.

The difference is the resolve. Do I have the resolve to do [insert goal here]? Tonight, I’m asking myself what’s really important to me heading into the new year.

But this still isn’t the end or the beginning. This is now. Tomorrow is tomorrow. Life goes on and gets messier and more beautiful everyday, when you look hard enough – when you have the resolve to.

Do They Know It’s Christmas Time?

This is a speech I wrote for Creative Writing and presented earlier this week. Enjoy~

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The smell of pine and the paper decorations are hanging from the old tree now. Eggnog’s in the fridge and the lights are glowing gladly under the gutters. Old tunes cycle through the radio as we drive up and down snowy lanes of light powder and pass under the points of icicles. The kids are hopped up on candy canes and dreams of sugar plums (or just sugar – and lots and lots of gifts), running to the house from the bus, as if the brief period of cold they rush through is the only hardship they will ever face. There seems to be joy all around - doesn’t it feel like Christmas?

Well. I’ll be the first to say that it doesn’t. The needles are falling and the ornaments are shredded, dropped and shattered. The eggnog’s run dry and half the outdoor lights are broken – we haven’t even used them for one season. There isn’t even snow – it hiding away, keeping itself in some kind of cloudy closest, afraid of the wrath of everyone who would scorn it.

This doesn’t feel like Christmas.

This feels like another hard New England winter, dreary in its very nature. It’s cold. It’s windy. The sun sets quickly and hides behind the walls of this school cell. It’s disconcerting to us who work so hard (or not at all) for what we think is a passable existence. All we’re really trying to do now is survive. Celebrating any kind of ‘holiday’ seems so foreign right now – to me anyways.

So I’m not about to go off on a religious rant at you guys – God knows how poorly that would go over – because I know my beliefs aren’t all that popular. I also don’t want to tell you that the only real way to enjoy this season is to go to church next Sunday morning and sing hymns – Hell; I’m not even doing that. It’s because Christmas as we know it isn’t so much about the birth of Jesus (we’ve taken on too many aspects of ancient solstice traditions), but about the warmth we feel when we come together. It’s a time of connection. It’s a time of giving.

(Went a little improv for this paragraph – added the weekend after I wrote this speech). The first time this season I felt like it was really Christmas was when I, this past weekend, helped out at TMAC. I helped load cars with food for needy families who would not be having a Christmas dinner if it weren’t for the unrepayable generosity of the people who donated all of this food. It took my heart and challenged it to live this Christmas differently.

So when I look at my own heart through this lens, it’s not all that hard to see why I’m not satisfied with Christmas this year. I haven’t made the season about connecting with my loved ones – I’ve made it into a time to send out a Christmas list to them. I haven’t made the season about giving more than can be repaid to me – my parents and brothers are the only ones I bought for, and I know that they’ll give me many more gifts that I’m giving them.

The only thing I can think about most days right now is how grueling my school work is and how much I want this year to be over. The only thing I can say in conversation is how awful all of this is – why on Earth did I join so many societies and clubs and do swim team? And then I look like the world’s biggest snob when I say I’m upset I only got a B- in English this term. Me me me.

Christmas is a time for selflessness, and I’ve forgotten that. I think a lot of people have. When I went in to Boston with my cousin last weekend, we visited Johnny Cupcakes (the clothing store with an awesome bakery theme, and the cool crossbones and cupcake logo), which spurred a discussion of why we’re called the ‘cupcake generation’. We came to the conclusion that throughout our lives, we’re handed ‘cupcake’ for each and everything we do, and then we come to expect them more regularly until we’re to the point where cupcakes lose their value, but not their taste. So you could say we just grow fatter and fatter on them.

I want you to go on a diet from this cupcake addiction with me this year. Take a bite out of the fruits of serving and connecting and loving others. Make this Christmas about more than just the gifts and the food. Make it about the people you love, and make it about giving. You might just find yourself happier than the moment you open presents Christmas morning.

The Snowball that Falls from the AP Cliff

Yeah. I should be at practice right now. I should be training, pushing myself for our first meet of the season next Wednesday night. But I’m not – I’m home. This is the only place I can be right now. And I don’t know if there is anything I should be doing but writing this.

A single email has put me in tears. One grade report opened the floodgates to a lot of emotions that I’ve been holding back for the last three months. I was so scared/ excited to start this school year. I knew it would be hell. But I knew there would be so many good things along the way. Everything I do, though, pulls my heart strings a little tighter, tangles them a little more.

My heart is a knot now. There has been no freedom in it’s expression – no joy, no love. There has been anger. There has been tears. There has been frustration and chaos and there has been a gap that I don’t know how to fill. The truth is, I pushed every part of ‘me’ away, every part of God away, so I could try to fulfill the requests of what everyone else around me wants me to do. I felt obligated, obliged, committed to these things.

Tri-M; National, English, French, and Science Honor Societies; StuCo; the winter concert; coffee house; swim team; all things I felt obligated to do because I was asked to, and because my friends were doing them, and because I wanted to because I love some of those things (and think others would look great for college). Add to those things a brief attempt at NaNoWriMo, volunteering at the library, Scouts (and a looming Eagle Project), and Church. The sum is a very tired, stressed out Matthew.

I know people don’t like some of the things Mr. Dewar says, but when he told us: “Homework, sleep, social life; pick two,” he gave us a choice. I tried to do the impossible – I tried to choose all three. What a fool I’ve been.

It’s almost ironic how I’m finding how miserable I really am – on the inside, at the deepest level, and not how others want me to feel – during this most joyous time of year.

Before I go on, I need to clarify something: one D isn’t that horrible of a grade for the beginning of the term. Neither is a C+. But when you’ve been pushing yourself for so long, and when you know you could always push a little harder, it’s crushing to see yourself slip. Ever since I decided that I needed an academic challenge, I’ve been utterly self motivated. To see my motivation lap seems normal on the outside – but when aimless motivation becomes the only structure you can fall back on, when you have no other way to cope with the stress, it’s crushing to find yourself without your one method of coping.

I know I’m over emotional about this. That’s just how I am. I’ve already been told this year that I wear a chip on my shoulder when it comes to my emotions. And it probably is wrong to let all of this hang out. And I don’t try to sound like a grade snob. But this – the writing – this is how I resolve. This is how I think. This is how I live beyond this pain. This is how I reach out, because I know that I’m not the only one who feels like this. I know these things sound familiar to my friends. They’re bigger, more exaggerated, but they recognize them.

So I have some decisions ahead of me. I can’t keep missing these little things, because grades are like snowballs, and when you miss one, they keep getting bigger and bigger coming down. Then they roll over the AP Cliff and crush you. I have to stop doing so much so I don’t get crushed like this again.

It doesn’t mean I’ll quit all my activities – but I’ll definitely be missing a meeting now and again, and I’m jumping ship on the extra stuff. If I don’t do my volunteer hours for my societies: fine. I don’t care. They aren’t as important as my grades. If I can’t go to a fundraiser or whatever: fine. If I can’t work again after the swim season because I have to focus on studying: fine. If I have to miss more practices to do homework: fine; I’ll deal with those consequences. If I have to skip a camping trip or a scout meeting to do homework: fine. If I have to lock up the Xbox and only use the internet on my laptop: fine.

I’m done living up to ridiculous expectations. It’s time for me to choose what’s important to me. An older friend once told me to “stand up. Dust yourself off, and stand up. You walk forward now. You have what it takes.”

O temps…

Time. It feels like a post apocalyptic luxury. Better yet, it feels like some subconscious thread, and I am either pulling down or climbing up. I waste what rope I’m given, and always think I have more than I do.

I am poor in time. Yes: I am wealthy in academic success. But it’s starting to cost me my sleep, and my sanity. It’s stressing me out. I don’t have to tools to cope – I try to escape the tick of the clock in fantasies, stories, games, mindless television. I let myself become distracted from the things that call for me to give up time. Before I could even start writing this, I found myself watching Youtube videos and going through old posts to see if I had ever felt like this. It’s quite a miserable feeling.

Let us take this past weekend as an anecdotal example of how I feel like I have no time (and how I tent to waste what little time I have): I spent 6 hours of my Saturday in school for an AP English Study Session. After that, I went to a party in Cumberland, where I knew next to no one. The commute there and back was at least an hour, and it was a crazy hour at that. Then, on Sunday, I spent my morning in church, two hours in the mall with Dad and Chris, and the rest of the day on Minecraft. I spend the two and half hours left before bed doing homework.

Here’s the kicker: we were suppose to visit a friend in the hospital yesterday. He has a collapsed lung. I wanted to visit him. I really did. But I thought I had too much homework. Seeing as I built an entire house in Minecraft in the time I could have visited our friend, and then did my homework in the wee hours of the night, I obviously wasted my time.

Because of stress, I am disarticulated in writing this. I don’t even know why I’m writing it. I have to start The Scarlet Letter tonight, and we’re going to the hospital in less than an hour – which means we won’t be home until 8 at the earliest.

It’s frustrating. It’s like I can’t trust myself anymore. I just deleted my Minecraft file from my computer, and I’m still finding ways to waste my time. I need help…

On this note, I end my mental blurb: Junior year sucks.

Growing Discontent

For a long time now, I’ve been unhappy about how much time I spend online, on the computer, in front of a screen (excluding my Kindle). I wonder why I find myself doing exactly those things so often – every day really. It’s as though I’m incapable of doing anything better with my free time. For this reason, I find myself growing discontent with myself, physically, mentally, and socially.