It's Christmastime

It's Christmas Eve in Truckee, California. My family decided to exchange gifts tonight; it's an unfamiliar but welcome departure from our usual crack-o'-dawn tradition. Instead, we're all planning to ride snowmobiles around Lake Tahoe tomorrow at 9 a.m. I can't think of a more unique and enjoyable way to spend Christmas Day.

I passed all of my fall semester classes. Actually, I excelled in my fall semester classes and completely surpassed my own expectations. All the time I spent flustered for the past weeks and months—worrying whether I would be allowed to graduate in May—seems to have been a complete waste of time. Perhaps not a waste but, you know, I could have been proactively positive rather than a negative Nancy the entire time. Straddling the edge, tripping over my responsibilities and worrying whether my next clumsy step will see me into another one of life's ditches... well, it's a recurring theme in my life.

My dad warned me a long time ago that he, too, spent too much of his youth worrying about things and not enough time actually doing the things that needed to be done. It must run in the family.

One of my winter projects is finished: All of the music, movies and pictures on my hard drive are now organized into nice, neat little folders. Shuffling old images reminded me how long I've been going at this whole college thing. Half a decade now. The amount of weirdness, badness and disappointment I'd blocked from my collective memory of freshman and sophomore year is startling and staggering. What else don't I remember? Would I be a better person now if I had remembered?

Would I be worrying so much about things I can control?
Would I worry more about the things I can't control?

What a decade.

I was 12 when Y2K happened. I stayed up late and watched one of Dick Clark's last New Years Eve broadcasts with my dad. I remember trading a weird, disappointed glance with him when the power didn't go out and planes didn't fall out of the sky at midnight. Barely two years later he died of esophageal cancer and his eighteen month battle with the disease is still very vivid and real in my mind. And nearly three years after that I received my acceptance letter from Rice. My good friend Phillip was there next to me when my mom came running at us from the mailbox, holding the letter and wearing the most proud smile a parent can ever hope to wear. Phillip's getting married this summer.

And what of the second half of the decade? I made do, I suppose. I had a lot of fun—both superficial fun and real, earnest, ear-to-ear smile fun—and had some great, priceless life experiences with great, priceless friends. I also did some stupid, selfish stuff that I'll never be able to undo or atone for completely. I did some bad things to people who either were my close friends or, miraculously, remain friends with me to this day. Five years of pushing the extremes for purposes that, in retrospect, boil down to selfishness, stupidity or entitlement.

But it wasn't all bad. I remember O-Week at Rice, meeting Andrew and Augusta and Louie. And even before O-Week, getting to know Sam and Allee and Leslie and all the clever nerds who were so earnestly excited to experience college. Sharing Southern sensibilities with people like Julie and Sarah who seemed like old, familiar friends the instant I met them. Austin City Limits Music Fest, both in 2006 and 2008. Road tripping across Texas to Port Aransas and Matamoros, Mexico, for spring break during my sophomore year. And to Shiner and Fredricksburg for spring break last year. Meeting a girl named Cristina who shared all my weird interests and made me feel comfortable and confident and happy while pushing me to be the better man. And those parties that saw me outside Baker College 'till 5 a.m. talking with Stef or Britt or Johan about life, love, movies, music &stuff.

Not bad for five years. Not at all. And, deep down, I know that the person ending this decade is the same person that started it: The one who is surprised when planes don't fall out of the sky.

I'm the last person awake here in the little vacation cottage my mom won for a week in a contest several months ago. Goodnight, blog.