My Best Friend moved to Germany.

I knew it would happen for probably a year in advance. She would talk about it, I would listen, and I guess I just turned my ears off to the fact that this wasn’t make-believe. We weren’t eight years old playing pretend, swaddled up in a blanket and giggling between each other. This wasn’t Im gonna live in England, and we’ll live together with three cats and two dogs. This was actual real life.

I’m very aware of my place at MSA, and how exactly I’m privileged just to be here. We all got in by application. We all went through the same audition process and proved ourselves either talented or capable. I don’t think I’ve ever stopped to really soak in the fact that this is all my life, and now that I have I’ve been faced with the fact that this is fleeting.

My dorm has been my home for a year, almost two. I will likely never see this dorm again once I leave. I love our school’s library so much, even if I don’t read as often as I should. I love our campus, our classrooms, and our teachers. I’ve never stopped to celebrate myself. Part of the reason is because no one has let me. Either my mom, or my siblings, or my friends. Sometimes myself. Sometimes big problems that I couldn’t possibly tackle in my life alone, like the government or the world. Another part of the reason is I never quite think its real.

The only reason I’m thinking now is because I’ve seen her a lot less. I’ve never really seen her, really. In the almost five years I’ve known her, she’s lived 6,854 miles away. Out of all of my current friends, I’ve known her the longest. We met at twelve in a cavetown discord server of all things, through a friend neither of us really have anymore. Now we’re seventeen, she’s in this weird college-highschool thing that I don’t understand and I’m here, at MSA. A senior. We’ve grown up together. I watched not one, not two, but three of my favorite shows ever just for her, and discovered so much about myself. I’ve seen her through two relationships, a situationship, and about six crushes. She’s seen me through the worst years of my life, immediately followed by my best. I knew I would see less of her when exams started.

( You hear the stories about kids in European or Asian countries quite literally dying over their exam seasons, and I thought it was some weird stereotype that didn’t actually happen.. no. It’s the most true. She taught me something, some sort of 50-10-50 studying thing that I use for writing now. I don’t think it was always like this, but she’d always text me during her ten minute breaks and we’d talk about anything. She would push it off for ten extra minutes just to talk a little longer. She’d say “I need to study, Danny” and I’d tell her “You hate me.” She never left. Exam season is brutal for bystanders as well. )

Which is why I sort of knew everything that was happening as it happened. I knew about her studying German, her language exams and how poorly she THOUGHT she did, because it was hard. I also knew when they got scores back and she had some of the best. I knew what schools she wanted to get in, and which ones she went to anyways. She’s one of the most dedicated people I know, if not the most.

I knew when she got accepted, and I knew when her VISA got approved. I guess the stress of MSA just kept me from fully appreciating the fact that my best friend was in the process of achieving her, like, actual dream. I remember when she didn’t even know what she wanted to do. She would go back and forth between her family and herself, over and over and tell me she didn’t care when she really did and couldn’t help but care a few days later. I think I saw a little bit of her worst, too. Then she got better. She didn’t know what she wanted to do, but she knew who she wanted to be and who she had to be. And she figured it out.

Sometimes, I sense little dregs of doubt in her. It’s weird that people who’ve never really looked each other in the eye can read word choice so well. I know it’s a lot of pressure for me to put on someone, but honestly I trust that she’ll figure that out, too.

To round all of this out, Dr. Alexis really taught me something about gratitude. I had never considered celebrating myself an option. I haven’t won any contests, or awards. I haven’t done anything big. I mean, I barely even passed into this year, I feel… But I did pull my GPA up from the 2.4 that haunted me for the entire first semester. I got into MSA at all. I got a high score on the ACT when I really thought I’d make a 15. I learned to suck it up, stick it out, and talk about my problems. I made friends. I learned it’s okay to think that some people and their made up problems are below me, and that I do in fact have bigger problems than that. I learned to tell people that they, indeed, have bigger problems than little old danny. My GPA is on track to be at least a 3.0 by the time I graduate, which isn’t much but it’s miles better than where I started. I was on honor roll for the second semester last year.

There are so many things that I do have to be grateful for, and I’ve spent a lot of time focusing on what I don’t have. I keep telling myself things will get better, and never stop to recognize what I do have that is good. It’s insane that I realized all of this on the first day Dr. Alexis told us that celebrating was an option.

Where I was last year, starting out as freshly 16, I didn’t really realize that the next 6 years of my life was a milestone after a milestone. 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22. It’s a weird thing to think about. Theres so much ahead of me, ahead of all of us. What we do, what we say, and the bonds we make right now are going to follow us. Every decision we make for the next six years will ultimately effect something else for the rest of our lives. This is the foundation… and that’s all a little weird to think about. I’ve spent my entire life preparing to be 17, and now that I am I’m spending this time preparing for what comes next. This isn’t make-believe anymore. Either you do or you don’t.

What I’m ultimately saying here is that I didn’t celebrate myself, and so I didn’t celebrate my friends how I should have. I wasn’t aware enough of how important the now is, because I was so scared as I was looking for the next thing. I hurt a lot of people, or I feel like I did, by not being there when they needed me. Specifically, Rock. I’ve most definitely talked about her before, and she really REALLY wants to see my blogs, so I’m finally letting her because she’s letting me write about her. If I were to have any advice for my juniors, and I will be urging them to read this because like I love yall, it would be to look around at who you keep around you. Will this matter? Do you want it to? I’m so serious when I say look at yourself, and who you are, and figure it out now before you make any decisions on who you want to be. Don’t keep people around who will hinder that.  This is my commentary of the year. I predict many Greek Mythology blogs.