These Are The Days

So here we are.  Another year almost gone, another apocalypse averted, another holiday season upon us.  It is weird to see the world in terms of holidays and apocalypses and stuff like that.  But it makes sense.  These days are the days that define us as people and as a world.  The days that matter, if you will.

I don't like to define my life by big days.  I like little days.  Little days that define your life and who you are in much more profound ways than the big days.  Days where only small things happen.

Days like when I went into Boston by myself for the first time.  It was the first time I ever rode the train by myself.  It made me feel like an adult.  My parents trusted me enough to do this on my own.  They knew that I would be meeting up with friends, and they let me, knowing that I could.  The freedom that comes with your parents realizing that you are almost an adult and letting you do things by yourself is a huge deal, especially when you are a teenager.  It solidifies itself in your head as a moment where you yourself realize that you are almost an adult.  The years where I am a teenager are almost over.  I only have three more years until I am twenty.  That notion is crazy to me.  But the fact that my parents trusted me to be able to take the train by myself shows me that true independence is not too far away.

Days like when I was in Israel.  Those are big days, I suppose, but it was the little things during those days that make that trip so memorable.  It was hanging out with the people in their rooms.  There was one day where me and my friends just sprawled out on the beds and watched dubbed Family Guy in Jerusalem.  We weren't supposed to be in the guys' rooms, but we didn't care.  We did it anyways, since obviously everyone else was.  Or being in a market place and having one of my friends buy, quite honestly, all of the spices in Jerusalem.  Or getting iced coffee.  Or complaining about early wakeups.  Or doing laundry together in the tub.  Or hugging each other.  Or comforting each other.  There are moments on that trip that I will never forget, and they were the small moments.  The comforting hand of someone who feels what you are going through.  The acknowledging hug of someone letting you know they are there.  Small things.  Laughter.  Jokes.  New best friends that I hope to have for the rest of my life.

Days like my grandmother's passing.  In the grand scheme of life, the universe, and everything, one human life is not huge.  Millions of people die every day, and millions of people are born every day.  Such is the nature of life.  I think what makes life special is that it doesn't matter how small and insignificant one human life can seem to the rest of the world.  That one human life mattered to me.  It was special, and beautiful. And now it is gone.  My grandmother's death was the first death that I have experienced that I truly realized how scary and how very big death is.  It is a big concept for such a small action.  It is part of being alive, but it is the absence of life.  I still can't quite wrap my head around the concept that my grandmother is not here, and will never be here again.  That she is gone.  Little things will remind me of her, like songs that she used to hum and candies that she used to eat.  They have become part of me.  And in that small way, she will never die.  What she was, who she was, is part of me now.  I guess humans have at least one facet of immortality down.  We can never be truly forgotten by those who love us.  And when the people we love are gone, and they become part of us, and then those parts are remembered by the ones who love us when we are gone.  And so it goes.

I have days where I don't want to get out of bed.  And those days define me.

There are days when I am so excited about getting to tomorrow that I can't sleep, even though I know that sleeping will get me to the next day quicker than tossing and turning will. And those days define me.

There are days when I have lost faith in humanity.  There are days when I have nothing but hope for the future of the world because of the good I see in people.

There are days when I am so anxious that I can barely speak.  There are days when I feel like no one likes me.  There are days when I worry about things that are out of my control.

There are days when I feel like I can soar on the wind of my own confidence.  There are days when I feel like the world is my oyster and everyone is a pearl.  There are days when I realize that the world is what it is and I can't change that, so I just accept it.

These days are the days that define me.  Not holidays, not apocalypses.  The little days.  The days that make up the in-betweens.  The beautiful, wonderful, horrible, terrifying, fucked-up and not fucked-up enough days in-between the days that define other peoples' lives.

These are the days that define me.

Happy Christmas everyone.

Jen