A new decade

Burying your grandfather and the decade in the same day seems a little much, but I guess that's how life goes. I won't try to sum up the entire decade; it's just too large. I do feel the need to say a few words of parting for 2009 however, fumbling though they may be. I thought of breaking the year into months, or doing what Jessi did on toetwis, but I don't think I can. I'll just say what I can say until I'm done saying what I'm saying.

The year was one of soaring heights and crushing lows for me; and although I'm afraid there were probably more lows in the end, it taught me a lot. The stuff below is all pretty personal and is more than a bit heavy. It's up to your own discretion whether you read it.

It started in Jessi's house, and we played Catan and had fun. Then it was back to school; and with Jessi's guidance then and in the previous semester I was able to finally learn how to work, which lead to me passing every course in a semester for the first time since entering high school. Which, considering you can only take two summer school courses and I was short two credits, was kinda important. If I had not passed, I would have been in high school another year, and I never would have gone to university. So yeah, thanks Jessi. My life would have taken a much different, darker path if I hadn't known you.

In that final semester there was the unfortunate death of PIRC, having fun with friends, being stupid about missing Jessi, working hard but less than I could have been, and the strangeness of the graduation where everyone else was doing it and I wasn't yet. After school for me was summer school, and feeling bad about hearing about fun things I couldn't do because I was in Saint John all day. Still, I enjoyed excelling in a way, I used it to try to get myself used to doing the best, and it sort of worked: both courses were high 90s. Still, when I could hang out it was really fun.

Then came going to school, and it was amazing. I had 3 week long adrenaline rush when I moved in. Breaking down my barriers, contributing in winning the cheer competition in welcome week for example, talking to what seemed like an infinite amount of new people, walking into every open door I could find in my res and introducing myself and talking, getting drunk for what was really the first time in the welcome week transition wet-dry and having people I didn't know remember me and talk about it ages later, getting into random debates over the nature of the universe and such all the time, going to awesome and genuinely educational classes, and just generally loving life. The culture of university was something I hadn't experienced, and it felt like home to me. Unfortunately, for the adrenaline rush period and for some time after, I gave the impression of abandoning my friends for new ones. I didn't mean to do this, I just had trouble finding free time ahead of time, and I just needed to walk down the hall to find someone to hang out with at STU. And a few of the people at STU actually were awesome enough for me to consider part of my close circle of friends. A couple of whom are possibly reading this.

After that, I started to break down slowly. I could still act happy and be social in the day, but I started going on long walks by myself at night to feel depressed. This got longer and longer and worse until I couldn't push it away at all in the daylight hours anymore. I stopped going to classes, staring with real reasons and then just not going anymore. I started staying in bed all the time, becoming almost completely nocturnal. Soon I even gave up the walks and stayed in bed 24/7. It wasn't a good time, and it stayed like that until I finally went to a doctor and got the meds right before exams. I still feel pretty bad from time to time, and I can't avoid the feeling that the relative happiness I have now is just pushing the depression away for a while like I did in the beginning instead of a permanent effect or the effect of the meds. Although this isn't really the place for that.

Christmas break has been good, it was great in the beginning when I was basically living in Allen and David's house, but I like my friends more than my family and I haven't seen my friends much at all for quite a while... And my grandfather did die, as I mentioned.

Now that I've written it out it sounds worse, but there were many parts I enjoyed. More than anything, I have hope for the future.