(no subject)
i was reading some old journal entries that i wrote in my junior year of high school, right about this time, and i realized how juvenile and stupid i was. all i wrote about was how i was always helping people and bitching about how they never took my advice. i even said that i would never take a high school boyfriend to college and that my idea of a long-distance relationship was people going to two different schools IN THE SAME COUNTY. i almost can't believe how much i've grown in the past four years. i've learned that talking to people and hearing about their problems is a gift, not a responsibility. when a friend asks me for help, i see it as an opportunity to strengthen a friendship, not see that my ideas of problem-solving actually work. i want to help because i want to see them happy, not because i want to be right. as for the boyfriend thing, i took a boyfriend to college. and now i'm dating someone in a different continent, let alone another county. i wrote my journal like people were DYING to read it, like their whole life revolved around knowing what i was thinking. what a long way i have come since then...hopefully.
the thing that disappointed me the most was one, minute little line in the entry that i probably didn't even care about when i wrote it. looking back, it's probably the most important thing that's ever happened to me. in my journal, i said that there were only two good things about my life at that time. my brother wasn't going to be home that summer and i was going to japan in a few weeks. i thought about that for a minute until i realized that, in just over two weeks after writing that journal entry, my biggest and most loved influence on my life died and all i wanted was for my brother to come home. i thought about how i wanted to call off my japan trip. my world crashed around me, and all i was thinking about right before it happened was about my stupid selfish needs. i didn't cherish my brother like i was supposed to cherish family. on the day my grandmother died, though, i immediately called him in tennessee. he was the only member of her family that didn't know what had happened, and he was the only person i wanted to talk to. two weeks before, i wanted nothing to do with him.
i'm glad i had the opportunity to see how much family really means to me, and i've changed so much since i wrote that journal. reading other things i wrote in high school, i know that i wasn't who i want to remember myself as, but hopefully i'm on the road to becoming that person.
the thing that disappointed me the most was one, minute little line in the entry that i probably didn't even care about when i wrote it. looking back, it's probably the most important thing that's ever happened to me. in my journal, i said that there were only two good things about my life at that time. my brother wasn't going to be home that summer and i was going to japan in a few weeks. i thought about that for a minute until i realized that, in just over two weeks after writing that journal entry, my biggest and most loved influence on my life died and all i wanted was for my brother to come home. i thought about how i wanted to call off my japan trip. my world crashed around me, and all i was thinking about right before it happened was about my stupid selfish needs. i didn't cherish my brother like i was supposed to cherish family. on the day my grandmother died, though, i immediately called him in tennessee. he was the only member of her family that didn't know what had happened, and he was the only person i wanted to talk to. two weeks before, i wanted nothing to do with him.
i'm glad i had the opportunity to see how much family really means to me, and i've changed so much since i wrote that journal. reading other things i wrote in high school, i know that i wasn't who i want to remember myself as, but hopefully i'm on the road to becoming that person.