What makes us grow? As we do, in time we grow and change into recognizably different people. I thought about this as I looked at the date on my phone. I thought about how we have reached December of 2019, and how we are heading into the next decade of this new millennium. I couldn’t really pinpoint it, at first, what has changed about me in the last decade until I thought about it in terms of a particular cat.
The cat taking up residence in my apartment is no longer that slightly mangy looking kitten my sister and old roommate found wandering the streets of Bakersfield. She’s now a slightly curvy adult cat with bowel issues and an expensive cat food diet. In many ways, she has developed this occasionally kind yet neurotic personality that leaves me wondering why, with her (I’m not kidding) overdramatic eye roll she gives me whenever I sing, she wasn’t born a human being. It took lots of time for her to even kind of like me or to become this strange domestic long-haired cat who loves playing fetch with hair ties. She has solidified her place in the world with her presence and personality, but this changed over the years and it continues to change as the clock hands tick forward.
I couldn’t shake the thoughts of irrational fear and nerves that coursed through my veins as I sat in the comfortable plush chair near the large wooden desk. I glanced around the room at the elegant décor and tried to take in a deep breath as the woman with a short blonde pixie cut and dark-rimmed glasses typed away on her computer.
“Relax,” the lady behind the wooden desk said. She adjusted her glasses and smiled. “You really have nothing to worry about with this. Your score is immaculate.” A few clicks on her computer later prompted the familiar sound of a toaster-sized machine to whirl and slowly spit out sheets of paper. She finished printing out the report that she was working on her computer, grabbed the sheets of ink-stained paper next to her desk, and presented them to me. She pointed out the number to me. However, that wasn’t why I was so nervous.
I spent about a week shuffling through all the possibilities for New Year’s resolutions this year. Last year was easy. I had just graduated from college, ended a relationship, moved, got a new position at a couple of magazines, and was forced to move forward. I decided to build upon the curve ball that I was thrown and just start swinging. And as the year ended and I finished my first semester of grad school, I found it wasn’t as easy to come up with another resolution.
I was already keeping up pretty regularly with the usual resolutions that involved making healthier and smarter choices, which made the year 2013 almost seemed like too good of a year to top. However, after one of the roughest New Year Eves that I’ve ever experienced, I realized that I would have to approach my New Year’s resolution from a different angle. Continue reading “My New Year’s Resolution”→
The power of the threaded four wheels propelled her rapidly down the city streets, and left the light flooding from the street lamps blurring behind them into the darkness.
She let her bare foot slowly fall down on to the gas pedal, which made the car gradually speed up on the cool autumn pavement—and as the wheels spun, the car flew forward, and her heart pounded at a heightened pace.
Her hand rose to clutch her chest as if it were trying to catch the throbbing muscle before it leapt out of her body. She began to take a few deep breaths to slow the rhythm’s pace and, as she exhaled to release the carbon dioxide from her lungs into the frigid air, a breathy-whisper followed with a question. Continue reading “Are You Ready?”→
When it’s time to change, then it’s time to change
Don’t fight the tide, come along for the ride, don’t you see
When it’s time to change, you’ve got to rearrange
who you are into what you’re gonna be.
Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na
Sha na na na, na na na na na, sha na na na na
Do you remember that one episode of “The Brady Bunch” where Peter’s voice starts to change and he’s left with this awful sounding screech of a noise during the recording of the song, “Time to Change?”
The song a Time to Change was probably one of the more interesting songs that the Brady’s ended up recording, but the message of everything eventually having to change whether you like it or not resonated with the pre-teens suffering through the awkward transitions of puberty, and it taught everyone else a thing or two about how to deal with the changes that go on in their lives. After encouraging words from his folks, Peter overcame the odd changes messing with his voice and the gang was still able to record the album for that episode.
Right now I find myself in Peter’s shoes—I mean I’m not going through puberty or anything—but I find my life going through some interesting changes.
Recently, one of my roommates left the apartment to study abroad in London for a quarter. Her leaving left a vacant spot, which I swear a vampire has taken due to this girl only ever really being seen when its dark or when the sun goes down, and the vibe of the place went from a 24-hour-disco to a creepy dungeon at the bottom of an extremely haunted mansion.
Questions like, what are your plans after your undergraduate studies, where are you planning on living, and why are you so strange become even more important as my to-do-list of classes left for my bachelor’s degree shrink as I’m a little closer to reaching the end.
The thing is, change is coming whether I want it to or not, but like Peter’s situation, the change that’s breaking into my home like a crazed robber on crystal meth is difficult to adjust to. I know eventually I will get used to dealing with the vampire living in my old roommate’s area, and I’ll find an efficient method for getting through my ridiculous load of classes. I guess for now I just have to chill, carry a wooden stake and a cross with me, and just take one day at a time.
