A snapshot of my life

This feeling.

I don’t think I’ve ever had this feeling before, this indescribable notion. It’s like—it’s like looking up and seeing the bright night sky for the first time, or—

I think I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start somewhere else. Not the beginning, because that was eighteen (eighteen!) years ago, but somewhere where we can at least plant our feet.

Homecoming, perhaps?

Firstly, I didn’t ask anybody to homecoming. Secondly, I thought that maybe I could skip the dance and just hang out with a few good friends—the ones I had left after so many of you went to college. But ultimately, I decided to go, mostly because everybody else asserted that it was a good idea. However, to make up for the inevitable lameness of the homecoming dance, I also planned an afterparty/sleepover and invited everybody in our big dinner group. I think I expected it to be like one of the gatherings I had with you graduated friends over the summer—like minigolf or the sleepover at Ved’s or geocaching or kayaking. Looking back, I must have thought that having an afterparty would magically fill up the hole in my life that your disappearances created. But of course, it didn’t, and it was with tired disappointment, not lingering euphoria that I cleaned the last bits of salsa off of my pool table.

Even though I was still recovering from homecoming for the remainder of that week, I tackled my classes with vigor—English, Government, Astronomy, and Photography especially. Never before have I wanted to learn and participate so much in class, and never before has work been so sweet. On Wednesday, I finished a design for the first ever TJ Varsity Math Team T-shirt (not just a tjarml T-shirt!). On Thursday, I took my first Numerical Analysis test of the year, which I thought I bombed. On Friday, I gave my first Biology Olympiad lecture of the year, and over 65 people showed up to listen attentively.

On Saturday, my family and I celebrated my birthday with a humongous balloon and a succulent lobster at a Chinese restaurant. My dad even bought me a gift, which was actually a surprise—an alarm clock/speaker system/dock for my iPod.

The day after my birthday, I skipped church and went out for lunch with Greyson, Renjie, Aviv and Sam; we had delicious, delicious cake to celebrate my birthday and Aviv’s. Between bites, we joked around and made plans for second semester and also reminisced (or maybe I was the only one reminiscing, I forget), recalling our years at Haycock, back when we played chess every week and swung on the swings during recess. When we finished our food, we strolled around the Eden Center and into an art warehouse. The way our talk just flowed, the ease with which we conversed about eggshell paintings, and the obvious enjoyment of each other’s company—I realized that I was with friends again, not merely classmates.

The next day, I found myself again with four friends, Jenny, Renjie, Amanda, and Tim, in a car for three hours, singing along to I Want It That Way and then on a trail at the base of Old Rag Mountain. We listlessly plodded along at first, going uphill and for all we knew, going nowhere. But then we were rewarded with our first breathless vista of distant blue hills and fiery foliage, and though the trail got much, much steeper, we tirelessly continued on up to the peak, scrambling over gigantic boulders one at a time, handing each other backpacks and pointing out how best to navigate the slippery rocks. At the very top, we climbed out onto the stony peak, and together, we beheld the entirety our little universe—the patches of agricultural land, the autumn trees, and the foggy Appalachian mountains around us. At some point, we all lay down on the rock and just enjoyed the enlivening air surrounding us and the cool granite below us. Like the day before, I made note of the atmosphere of pleasantness and cooperation that existed in the way we related to each other—a feeling that was familiar and sorely missed.

On Tuesday, I discovered that I managed to get a 91% on my Numerical Analysis test and had a group essay revision session in English. The people in my group genuinely enjoyed my essay, and I was reminded of what my freshman English teacher told me earlier this year—that she reads an essay I wrote for her to her IBET classes every year, and each time she gets to the end, she cries.

And then, today, I went onto blogger for the first time in a while and found that I had a lot of catching up to do. I opened up twenty or so tabs and went through your stories and thoughts one at a time, starting with Ved’s post on foosball and ending with Yangbo’s moving piece on visiting his grandpa’s grave. Each post gave me an intimate glimpse of the author’s life, at the end of each post I stopped to think about my own life as well. I remembered all the friends that I’ve made, the things I love to do, and the work that I’m passionate about. I reminisced about childhood and what my parents and grandparents have given up for me.

And now I’m back to that feeling that I was trying to describe.

All I can say is that I still feel like I’m on that mountaintop, with all of my friends right here beside me—those of you in college and those of you still here at TJ. From the top, I can see the little peaks in my life that I’ve already visited as well as the path ahead of me, and I’m just starting to realize what I want to do in this life and what I want to accomplish. From here, I can clearly see the things that I cherish, the influence I have over other people, and the ancient foundation that I stand on and how much those stones have suffered and sacrificed for me. On this peak, I can see everything beautiful and ripe in my world—and I hate to have to start the journey back down.