Begin Again

Now Playing: Begin Again by Taylor Swift (you don't know how nice that is, but I do)

Begin Again has launched!

I'm back from high school graduation and I'm exhausted. I'm in my flannel sweatpants and my favourite pumpkin orange sweater. My graduation certificate and my Ella Mackay Award for English are next to me on my desk. And I'm deliriously exhausted and happy.

By the way, this is my first post published from my iPad :P. I'm practicing touch typing on my Logitech iPad keyboard so I can keep up with my lecturers next year. And it's also the first blog post I've written listening to music through my new Sound Magic headphones, which are wonderful.

High school. I've done it. It's been a psychotic rollercoaster. The most euphoric highs, the most devastating lows. It's been four years of every single thought and feeling and emotion all tumbled together. Year twelve, especially, was the year of firsts.

So I think it is fitting, at the conclusion of my secondary education, to begin again. It's been a year of hurts and I want to move on. I've always been a shy sort of person (believe it or not) and wary of strange company and so I've never had such a fierce desire to reconnect with myself, to do new things, to meet new people, to learn and grow. I want to reach new heights and...I want to fall in love again. I want to love new friends, I want to learn how to love myself again. And I want to fall in the kind of love that Taylor Swift talks about, love that shines golden like starlight, and doesn't fade or spontaneously combust. The relationships I've had, with loves, with friends, with myself, have been red. There has been nothing beige about my life, and for that I am glad. But the relationships that go from zero to a hundred miles an hour and then hit a wall and exploded were awful, ridiculous, desperate, thrilling. And as much as I regret nothing and would do it all again in a heartbeat, I have never lost hope on my ambition to find a state of grace.

This year I have tried to be fearless. I have tried to be brave and to speak my mind. And doing that gave me the guts to do what I never thought I could do before - I realized just how worthy I was, of this state of grace that I dream of, and that it will somehow be worth the wait. Being fearless wasn't not being afraid of anything - truth be told, everything brave and reckless I have done I have been so close to breaking down, terrified, but being fearless meant that I did it all anyway; I did whatever I thought to be right, no matter what. Being fearless was scary and often broke me, but it also helped me to heal. I owe everything to being fearless.

If you are a true friend, I love you dearly. I love you for being with me. I love you for picking me up every time I fell. I love you for helping me to be fearless. And I will always love you, even though I begin again. It's a new leaf and a fresh slate, but you are embedded in my heart.