Old Fart

So here is my goodbye to teenagerhood! In about 20mins I will be turning 20 and I will be done with my teenage years. This has been a wonderful/ horrible/ exciting time in my life and I made it through with only a few bumps and bruises and a couple of major scars to show for it. I have found my voice and lost it a couple of times; I have loved and lost, written and erased, and learned that you can't hold on to anything forever and so you have to hug it tight while you can. Life is a hike made of individual foot prints that one must enjoy one step at a time in order to see the whole forest.
This might be a bit of a sad post, but I am going to be selfish and not think much on what anyone else might think of it.

Amelia: you were prehaps the most painful and most wonderful learning experience of my life up to this point. You taught me how to measure a person for their true worth, that life can be both brief and beautiful and that a 17 year old can die gracefully with little to no regrets about what she has accomplished while on this earth. I will love you forever and know that you are somewhere up there looking down.

Mom & Dad: you both continue to be this amazing pair of role models and I couldn't have asked for better parents. Your unquestionable love for all your children is something of a fairy tale to me, and the fact that it doesn't seem to end, even after 20 years of my dramatics, has been, and will continue to be a miracle in my day to day life. I hope you have no regrets about how you raised me, because I certainly don't have any qualms about how I was raised.

*I am now 20*

Friends: And you should all know by now I won't name any names, but you should also know who you are. You guys are the oil to my engine. Nothing ticks right without any one of you. You have kept me going when i didn't think it was physically possible to do so any more. You all teach me so much about life and learning and life and rowing and life and myself and yourself...and life. :) You make life less lonely by simply existing within mine. Even though some of you may not be as much of a part of it as you were, and some of you may only last a brief time, each one of you has changed a part.

Zoe and Adam: you should know, first off the bat, that I would go to the ends of the earth for either of you and even though I don't live in the same house as you guys I would be there if you needed me; anytime, day or night. Watching you guys grow and getting to be a part of your lives has been an adventure to say the least. I am sorry if I wasn't always the most including big sister when we were all younger, but know that you have both grown (and will continue to grow) into people I love and respect. You are my baby sister and my lil bro bro and nothing will ever change that (no matter how tall you get.)

Gaebrial: it surprises me to give you a portion of this blog, but it feels right. You were, and will always be, my first love. You have a spot in my heart no one can touch. You taught me so much about myself and even with how things ended I would not trade our 1 yr and 10months for anything in the world. I know you may not feel the same but you were a very important part of my growing up. I wish you could read this, but I have the feeling you probably never will. I love you all the same for what you were to me, and wish you happiness in what you will become.

Professors/ Teachers: you are the metaphorical village that raised the child that was me. If it wasn't hard core facts I was learning from any one of you it was how to deal with lifes challenges. Even those of you I could not stand taught me how to deal with myself and deal with people. Those of you I loved, I will love forever and you have given me the gift of wanting and yearning to know more about everything. My education and my mind has been fostered in the classrooms I have sat in with you. My quest for knowledge will never cease and therefore neither will your influence.

and finally...

Coaches: I had the opportunity to see an old softball coach the other day, and it reminded me how much of what little work ethic I have, I developed on a field, or a pool or on a river. It was all of you that taught me honor and selflessness for a team. It was each one of you that drove me to be better than I had thought myself to be. Your words that pushed to to take more, steal one more base, swim one more lap, row that 2k a secons faster than the last. I undoubtably hated each of you at one point or another, but my respect for you all goes so far beyond words...well I cannot say.

Thank you to everyone that got me to this point. This 20 anniversary of my short trip to earth. It has been beautiful and I can only image will continue to be so. The adventure continues, and I am glad you were all there for the first leg of it.
Hope everything is coming up roses.

~The Singing Ginger