Happy blogiversary to me!

Today marks exactly one year since I started this blog.

I was just looking through all my previous entries, which didn't take too long considering how terribly s p a r s e they have been during the last oh, seven of those twelve months, and it was interesting to revisit some of the experiences and themes governing the last year of my life. I guess the recorded history is pretty much limited to last winter semester, since I have been so negligent since then. Sometimes it seems like those days of struggling to get to Latin in the mornings and enthusiastically attending K'iche' in the evenings, of becoming enamored of and drawing inspiration from B's puer senex eyes, of making new friends and exploring new avenues and getting interested in not-typically-skylark things, were so long ago. And yet it is a little difficult to believe that all that happened almost a year ago.

Some things have not really changed. I still struggle with heavy loads of schoolwork and chronic procrastination and the occasional (though less frequent now) consequence of feeling like a spectator in my classes. I still find it somewhat difficult to get to my daily 9am class, though not quite so difficult since it is a living language (German instead of Latin) and there is added incentive that even gets me there ten minutes early if I can manage it. I still find beauty and inspiration in the sky and temporary solace in chocolate.

Other things have changed quite a bit. I am still very young in many ways, but I feel that I have grown up a lot during the past year, more than in previous years. Like a spiritual growth spurt, maybe. I still have a long way to go, and some days I feel like the final destination is entirely uncertain, but I think that I am getting closer to whatever it is. I have learned a lot about who I am and where I am going and what is going to help me get there. I am older (another birthday came and went in Mexico) and wiser (says my college diploma) and constantly striving toward bigger and better things and getting closer to uncharted territory. I am trying to figure out this grad school game and preparing to be a teacher and an editor and uncovering a myriad fears and anxieties. I am constantly trying to plan for an uncertain future and occasionally wanderlusting. I cherish my relationships with family and friends and I am making conscious, though maybe not consistent, efforts to strengthen and preserve them, particularly the former.

And I am in love.

More on that, and other topics, in future installments of soareyes. Let this be my new blogyear's resolution to make up for those long blogless epochs of the last several months and maybe give someone a reason to stop by every so often. To a more prolific year...