The Beginning

“Change is the only constant”—a statement my closest friend Hayley has probably had to tell me hundreds of times over the past few months—and every single time she reminds me not to be afraid of change because being afraid robs you of the ability to control how you react--and that's really all that life is, a never-ending string of changes and reactions.

Where I started

I decided to begin this blog, not because it’s my first year of college—cause no matter how much I don’t want to believe it, I’m halfway through my third—or because something significantly life altering happened, or because I have a deep desire that everyone reads every single thought I post. Its just sort of is something I think I should do, because as some close friends have been telling me lately, I have somewhat of a strong opinion and my multiple rants and comments are almost too cluttered to handle—and this would work as a way to jumble them all together into some sort of continuous train of thought.

"A friend is one who believes in you when you have ceased to believe in yourself." 

After graduating high school, I don’t think I realized how quickly my life would change in the following three years--and I can tell you that I especially didn't see my life turning out the way it is today. Freshman year was tumultuous to say the least—between the days of the constant ache for home, retiring from the sport I’d spent years playing, not knowing if I’d stay at Dartmouth, then at the very end making the final, yet still hesitant, choice to stay—I think I  came to the same conclusion that I probably should've always had; Dartmouth was home, and I just had to embrace that. 

Ever since then I’ve been trying harder and harder to grasp what “home” was every day that I’m here. Since making that decision, I used to think that I had  "given up" a lot:  the person I thought I’d be with for life (immaturely but surely thought so…), the chance to be closer to home, and lost some distant friends along the way. But how I’ve learned that I need to look nothing was a loss, and that with every decision I've made there’s been something else gained, such as;  a stronger relationship with my family, especially my dad and my sister (if you only knew what high school was like, haha), opportunities that I could’ve never imagined, met some of the most outstanding people and made some of the best friendships, and most of all I gave myself a chance to experience one of the richest college experiences I could have ever asked for—so I guess I’m still waiting to see how that works out.

Where I am today

Now that my junior winter is coming to a quick close, just got a job in the gorgeous San Juan Islands for the summer, and I’m slowly approaching my 21^st birthday (slowly but SURELY)—sh*t is getting way too real. Maybe that’s why I’ve decided to begin this blog, or maybe it’s not, but either way I’m going to start to write about all the crazy sh*t that goes on day to day in my life, in my families, in my friends—everything and anything that I can think of I guess.

I think what I’m going to try to do is probably not post everyday but just post when I have something somewhat meaningful (or what I think is at least) to say or ramble on about, and try to end with somewhat of a quote that pertains to what I said in the post.

So here we go, there’s post one and here’s quote one:

"Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes"

As my brief statements above probably let you know, I haven't always (and still don't) have a "path" that I'm following, or really any direction at all. I used to have a hard time looking at mistakes I’ve made as anything else but dumb choices that I’ve made yet wish I hadn’t—now I see them as “lessons” or in this case what Oscar Wilde would consider “experiences”. I’ve also slowly realized that every experience that I’ve had, every person that I’ve lost or gained, every choice that I’ve made—has deeply contributed to who I am—who that is, I don’t really know  yet, but I know eventually I’ll figure it out, emphasis on eventually.