the osc blog: December 2014

It's New Year's Eve! As it is 1:21 p.m. and I enjoy the luxury of being able to hang out in my pajamas, I felt extremely motivated to write a blog. I will say that I often do feel the motivation, and at times these great ideas strike me, but by the time I get around to writing them out, I find they have been removed from my memory. I think I'll start doing a little trick I've heard some people do with their tweets. That is, in the moment, using the Notes app as soon as an idea for a blog (or other social media influenced post) comes to mind and when it comes time to dedicate time to the blog in front of my computer, bam, there are the ideas, ready for me to remember them.

This year, though not the easiest, has been very good to me. Even when I think about the times that have stressed me out, I must say that it is only a handful of them that stand out. The major one was doing the jobs of three people this year. One major thing I am looking forward to is a new hire we have at the first work day of the year. I get to just do my job for the rest of the school year, wahoo! However, much in the spirit of aud lang syne, I will say there are those who I cannot help but note had harder times than I did. This was the year my friends Nancy & Andres lost their father, Abel. I so much admire their strength as a family and how they pay tribute to him with every family event they have had since his passing. Bad news also struck our DH community when news came that one of our schoolmates, Jeffrey, passed away in the last week as well at a very young close. Though not close with him, he was a very kind-spirited young man who always had a smile on his face.

With this said, my friend Lizzy recently found her "Life Plan." What is that you ask? Well, in high school, if you took the AP Econ/Government course (which I got out of), you were asked to work on a major project called a "Life Plan." This plan consisted of writing everything out that the next ten years of your life would consist of. However, it wasn't all future based, one also had to write about where one currently was including friends, goals, and ideals held at the moment. One of the questions asked was "If you had to name the one person you have the most compassion for, who would it be?" Lizzy's answer was me. In her response her reasoning was that my grandmother had just passed away and in essence had been pretty bummed out for a while. In retrospect, I had many reasons to be bummed out during that time in 2002. Aside from my grandmother having passed away, which was of course it's own load, my parents had just bought the house they currently live in. When the last of the things that needed to be moved out of the truck, that's when my dad found out his mother had passed away. The timing was goosebump inducing. My dad headed over to Mexico with my aunt (his sister) and my mom, brother, and me were left to live in very unideal conditions. For you see, my parents bought a duplex, and the house we were going to live in, wasn't done being prepared for us to move into, so we already knew were going to live in the other house while our house was being finished. But without my dad around, it brought the intensity of living out of boxes for a while to a whole new level. Aside from this, it was my senior year of high school, which is one's teenage pinnacle for stress, happiness, closures, and commencements. I will say that having Lizzy share her life plan response with me reminded me of why we continue to be friends. Because despite note being able to see each other as often as we'd like, we genuinely care about each other because we've seen each other grow up since we were kids who knew nothing to adults who take cheese with their wine. It was great seeing Lizzy and Heidi yesterday, a great way to catch up and really delve into pre-2015 reflection.

Osc, Heidi & Lizzy (est. 1998)

Always value those you have, and needless to say, I am grateful for those who have been with me this past year, as I hope I have been there for you. (side stream of consciousness note: That last sentence reminds me, all of "Friends" is coming to Netflix in 2015......jaaaaaaaaa!)