So. Obligatory end of year post?

Sure. I'll do that. I have to do something to give this year some closure, after all.

I've spent another year at Butler and found that some things never change.

One, I will never ever have enough money. I will be perpetually screwed financially, and the best I can hope for is to survive up to the point where being screwed by Butler is irrelevant in any immediate sense. This is a result of the fact that my parents are changing their legal residence to New Hampshire, where they live. Up until then, we've taken advantage of various military loopholes that allow me to be an in-state student. My senior year I lose at least four thousand dollars in state funding. However, I won't have to register for classes again, and maybe I can save up to help defray that. I won't know until the time comes.

Two. People are the same no matter how old you are or where you find them. Many people are worth talking to, spending time with, even loving. Others are petty, greedy, and generally not worth any of the above. The people I've found are often variations on the same theme. These don't beg for respect. They take it. They simply are to be respected, without any need for them to cry out, "I told you so." I've met a few of these this year. Some people are distractions, but these new friendships... they are the diamond in the ashes, which I take in spite of you.

Some things have changed, though.

One. I'm becoming both more selfish and less self-centered if that makes any sense. I consider what I want instead of what is expected of me. I will not be guilted, manipulated, bullied, or abandoned when another more useful commodity comes along. My autonomy is coming along a bit. However, with this growing freedom is coming the realization that I don't have to need people to be around them. I don't have to be using them as a means to any end. It's okay for me to value the company of another person. It's safe to value the needs of others if I keep my head about me and remain conscious that their needs are not my needs. I don't need to mortgage my identity to anyone else to be relevant, but I can lend the identity I've chosen to the causes I value. The distinction may seem small, but it's a step in the right direction.

Two. Summer vacation isn't looming on the horizon as a three-months span in which life simply.... stops. I can spend that time with a young man I love very much, knowing that he loves me and is glad to have me around. I can go to my parents' house just long enough to see my cat. I can go to India. I can go to Ohio and get a job so that I can stay with Brian. Small sacrifices in order to gain everything worth working for.

Three. As I become more expressive of healthy emotion, I'm learning the difference between what's helpful and what isn't. I'm becoming a little easier to be around, very slowly and very gradually... but I'm getting there. I figure it's the least I can do for the people who stayed. They deserve that at least. The others? Let them remember me as they wish. I do not regret anything I have done. I was not unjustified in my scorn or dismissals all these years. I still have not been proven wrong. I simply intend to treat the people who love me with more gentleness than I've previously been capable of.

How are those for some changes? I am the same as I was, but greater in many ways. I will make different choices in the future than I have in the past, but the past is still there where it always was. I do not regret a moment of it.

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