The Year in Review

As I type, on the 38th floor of an apartment building on the northwest corner of Millennium Park in Chicago, I glance out the window and see, to my great surprise, a strangely affecting skyline. Only at this moment do I realize, overwhelmed by unexpected beauty, that life is indeed good and that the year is approaching its end. January seems now like an incredibly artificial time for the new year to begin, hastily thrown in among the snow-burdened trees and ice-crusted grass. Perhaps this is done to encourage the new season of life to come earlier. At any rate, now is as good a time as any to digest the past year, which I hope to do over the next couple of days, while I should be working on my gigantic mass of homework. The easiest thing, however trite, to do would be to make lists of good things and bad things.

Good Things:
I fell in love with Stasia
I met Kristen at camp
I made 1st Team All-State for Scholastic Bowl as a sophomore
I aced the PSAT again
I got my license and experienced the relative freedom of driving myself
I played almost every minute of quite a few of our soccer games
I achieved my greatest ever level of endurance and fitness
I ran in my first track meet and actually beat people
I had a fantastic trip to India
I won $1500 in scholarships for winning a vocab bee and getting second place in an essay contest
I learned more about people I had technically known for a long time, but never took the opportunity to really talk to
I was forced to realize how much what I have chosen to spend my time on really means
I'm one year closer to college and, hopefully, concomitant freedom
I think I'm beginning to find a voice in writing
I had my most technically prolific year (literarily-speaking, if that is a legitimate phrase)
I finally have a class with Mr. Longhenry

Bad Things:
I helped screw things up with Stasia
Stasia moved away
Some of my best friendships are with people in three different states other than Illinois
My car got totaled
I have become relatively close, or friendly, with so many people that I cannot divide my time well enough between all of them and my other commitments
I was forced to admit that I could not fit in everything I wanted into my life's schedule
I'm one year farther from childhood
I have such little time to exercise my creative voice
I don't have a class with Mrs. Longhenry
I was terribly irritable with my parents