Only one day at time...if only...

So, its the new year. We've been in 2009 for six whole days, but I can already feel things changing. The new year always brings new hopes, dreams, desires, fantasies...and fears. When it comes to me, its mostly fears.

I'm always so afraid to look too far in the future, but end up doing it anyway. I try to make plans three months in advance, or even a year in advance, but somehow things always end up changing and I get upset. I'm most terrified of looking too far into this semester, because I'm worried something will end up happening and my life will turn sour.

Things are so good for me right now: I have some really great friends, a boyfriend who loves me, a new semester of fresh classes, and a whole bunch of opportunities that have just opened up to me. But I have this nagging feelings that something awful is just around the corner.

I have reasons for this. Things always change just when I start getting comfortable.

But this year I'm extra nervous for an entirely different reason. I'm graduating. I'm going to be going out into the real world, with real people, and (maybe) getting a job. I'm jumping out of this safety net of college, where meeting people is (supposedly) easy, and you can hardly keep track of the number of parties you go to, and things are readily available to you. Once you're out, who knows if you have the same kind of luxuries?

I went home for Hannukah and New Years, and that was hard. Not only did I realize that I really don't want to move back there, but I had to constantly think about what was coming up next for me. People kept asking what I'm going to do once I get out. "What can you do with a musical theatre degree? Be a waitress?" Or they'd ask what the boyfriend and I are going to do. And I honestly have no idea. Who knows if its even going to last that long?

Ugh, see what I mean? I'm so...pessimistic about the future. I wish I knew how to take life one day at a time. Because there are so many good things too. I still have a good 3 and a half months before I graduate. I still have time to hang out with all the people I've made friends with these past four years (and especially these last few semesters). I still have time to learn so many things. I still have time to find out more about myself while in college. I still have time to pull all nighters for fun.

I still have time to do so much, and yet...the fear still lingers.

Graduation

So I just got an email from my Bubby (that's "grandmother" in Yiddish) telling me that my brother's graduation was phenomenal. He went to a performing arts high school, so each of the different sections performed something (music school played music, dance school did a dance, visual arts showed some sort of...art, etc) (I'm also guessing that this is how it happened, since I wasn't there.) I was unable to attend said graduation, because I am in New York for the summer. Amazing opportunity, yet I was sad that I missed this big event in my brother's life.

My graduation was something that I couldn't wait to be done with. High school was definitely the worst time of my life so far, and I can say that with 97% certainty. (I don't remember a lot of my childhood...awful memory for some reason.) My high school years can be bundled up into a few words: no close friends, no encouragement, no interest. Graduation could not have come soon enough. Unfortunately, the last few days of school I became really good friends with a few people: Sam, Rebecca, Jose, and Jorge. We were all sitting near eachother in the graduation line because our last names were all close in lettering, so we had a chance to really bond during the 7 hour graduation rehearsal. It was during that time that I realized what I had been missing out on for so long. Easy friendship. Just by sitting together on those plastic white folding chairs that were ridiculously uncomfortable, we had things to talk about. We had conversations about our aspirations in life, who we wanted to be, where we were going to college...and what kind of senior prank we would have liked to have pulled (Our dumbass senior class decided that burning trashcans would be memorable. Losers.)

We all ended up going to grad nite together (I was the only one who had bought a ticket beforehand but once I told them I was going they decided to all go) and having an amazing time. We stayed up all night riding all the rides at Disneyland and going to the "clubs" and just laughing and having a great night. It was the perfect ending to my shitty four years of high school.

The group of us kept in touch for a little while, but eventually we split apart. Sam and Rebecca are dating (practically married! sort of), Jose is testing videogames for Disney and going to school to learn more about video programming, and Jorge...has a myspace, but I haven't talked to him in awhile. Thinking about them makes me want to send them a message and see how they all are. I just might do that.

It's crazy how you can find friends in the most random of places...a graduation lineup. Who'd have thought?

Congrats baby brother on your high school graduation...two weeks late.