Sixteen (Birthday rant)

It's been a weird year.

That's the best I can say it. Because so many weird things have happened, terrible and good, that I never would have expected. I lost best friends and made new ones; I found refuge in new places and was denied in others. I didn't get the things I want but I found new things to want. That doesn't diminish my wanting of those old things, but they are undeniably good, wonderful things.

Yesterday was one of the worst days in the entire semester. Today was one of the best.

I don't know why.

Life never works out the way I plan it, and I think that's a good thing. Even this post which discusses so brilliantly WHY we can't have complete control over our own lives doesn't mean I still don't want it. I still want to make myself a certain way and be friends with certain people and do certain things that I don't know how to control. But at the same time, if I had it my way, I never would have discovered the things I found this year.

It's like the roadmap in my head didn't get anywhere near fulfilled but all the side stops really make me reconsider my thoughts and beliefs and make me a better person.

Tomorrow I'm going to be seventeen. Tomorrow is the end of a crazy, crazy year. It wasn't the funnest or best or happiest year, but it was a hell of a year to say the least. I'm not nostalgic about it, but I'm happy I went through it. I got alot out of it, even with all the angst and the pain and the anxiety.

I learned how not to judge people and to be myself and to actually make sustaining relationships with people. I understand more people now, and find myself admiring people that I never would have considere worth thinking well of last year. 

I found real friends and I lost old ones. 

Nothing deathly happened; no tragedy that ripped my family apart. I've been happily blessed with a lack of such events in my life, but it can't last. 

I guess the crux of it all is that I learned more. 

Tomorrow is the end of my 16th year, and I'm almost sad. I've been through so much and I'm almost sorry to have to part myself with this part of my life. 

But alas, 17 has to make a name for itself. It will have its own angst and happy things too. I don't think I can imagine what my life will be like in a year, how good or bad it will be. 

The not knowing makes me excited though. Because there's so much ahead (hopefully, if I don't die or something awful awful happen) that my boring, mundane brain can't begin to expect, secret joys like my entire AP Lang class throwing me a party for my bday or getting a Twitter or writing nostalgic notes on the yearbooks of seniors. It wasn't anything I expected. 

But I didn't mind it.

So this is sixteen, a messy ride of good and bad, of high expectations and low receptions. I hope I "don't forget what it's like to be sixteen when I turn seventeen." (Sorry I quoted Perks of Being A Wallflower don't kill me) I hope I remember everything the way I remember it now. And I hope things get better.

Confident. Finally.

I finally got there.
You know, that special little place where you don't feel like crap for breathing and you're not worrying every damn half second about things.
Which is ironic, because being the month of AP tests and finals and college essays and what not, you think this would be the worst month.
Traditionally, it has been. (at least in the last two years)
And yet, it isn't. It's actually one of the best.
Maybe I've been building to it all this time, from September to now. Maybe I finally hit the confidence jackpot and was like "congrats, you finally did it" to myself.
I do remember when it started though.
Remember my music video trauma? When I made my music video and I was stuck and then I was inspired, and I wrote that I was going somewhere with it?
After three weeks of coming into the DVP room before and after school, logging Mr. Russo's heavy camera and hoping to God I wouldn't break it, filming people who didn't really want to help but did so out of obligation, I finally finished it.
And it was good.
Good enough that, in fact, when I played it for my friend in class, it took me a couple minutes to notice the crowd that had slowly but surely gathered around to watch. And after it was finished, one of the best students in the class went "That was actually pretty good." A really popular senior girl (Who actually is really nice, but she is also really well-known so NO NAMES) asked me to play it again. I did, and then she said "That's really good." Someone even asked me to upload it on Youtube.
Keep in mind that I don't think its a "great" music video. I don't think that any company would upload this as their official music video. But it was the one I wanted to make and I slaved over making and the one, that in the end, earned everyone's respect.
I don't know, it was then when it all hit me. The fact that I did it, that I made this thing after stressing and worrying and working for days without expecting much out of it. I did do it to make it good, but I didn't do it for the 'fame' or in the belief that I would actually get respect or recognition for it.
But when I did, I got in a good mood. And it hasn't went away yet.
It's helped me realize that "Holy shit. I DID something." Most of my other projects that I've slaved over have either gone unrecognized (not that I feel as if my work would warrant that much recognition anyways) or simply not paid attention to. It was just another assignment, like this one. One I took pride and agony trying to make good, but an assignment.
Most of the other videos in that class other people have taken charge on, so I just slid back and let others do all the work. None of it was intrinsically whollistically, 'mine'. There is a whole list on the credits though, and at least four names just for sticking with me and letting me be a weak numbutt about it for a week before calling it quits on the first song, and doing another.
I know my potential now. And what I want to do for the rest of my life.
Not necessarily music videos. But I want to do things that I slave and work for, heart and soul, and then see the faces of the people (as I now realize) I respect and admire as they watch it. To see their admiration reflected back, as an equal.
That's all really. To be an equal.
Also, I have college essays to worry about. And Ivy Leagues to not get into when I see my peers apply and get accepted to. Things like that. I have a intimidating internship in the summer that I hope to go I don't screw up. I'm not stressed about it.
I've come a long way (at least in my mind) from the teenage girl that cried over if her friends still cared about her.
Gotta keep moving forward.
P.S: Because I put a smartcard in the CD slot of an Apple computer at school (true story) I have to wait till monday to put my video online. It'll probably be under a "only people with the link" can see the video (at least at first) but if you guys want to see it, I'll put a link on here later and blog post about it.