The Story So Far

Well, here we are, May 12, closing in on the end of another year.

This happens every June though.  We're mostly excited, and a little sad when the year ends, but there's nothing we can do about it, so we make the most of it.  On the last day we all go celebrate because another chapter of our life is ending.

This year, for me, though was a little different.  I was a freshman in high school, so that was a new, and it was honestly a really good experience.  I got to be on the high school swim team and I got to take my first AP exam and all in all it was pretty memorable.

As you probably know, this blog was for my English class, and when I started it, I think I was a completely different person than I am now.

For one, this year I learned to study and do homework, which I had never really done.

I got a double ear infection right before a really big swim meet, and I learned (I guess) that sometimes you can't do everything.

I stayed up until 4 am for the first time, I wore a cow onesie, I determined what pair of my socks is the luckiest — these aren't things I necessarily learned, but they were definitely things that before this year, I couldn't say happened.

And as I've gone through most of these experiences, I've shared them with you.  I have a tendency to tell stories over and over again to my friends and family, and I see how that could be annoying.  By writing about the stories in this blog, I no longer felt like I wasn't being heard because I knew I was.

I realize that most of the people who read this blog are people I know and talk to everyday in real life, but I also realize that I have 1,540 reads, and at least some of them came from people who don't know who I am, and don't feel pressured to read my blog because we see each other everyday.  These people read it because they wanted to, and I want you select few to know how much that means to me.

Honestly, to know that my opinions matter, even in the slightest, is a pretty amazing feeling.

Today, I'm a different person from who I was in my first blog post in a million ways, but I'm also the same.  I still love Fritos, I'm still a sock enthusiast, and I still love to write in a way that can hopefully make people laugh.

We're all changing every day, and the amount we change throughout a whole school year is unmeasurable, but the point I'm trying to make is that this blog is kind of like a timeline of my freshman year of high school.

It doesn't include everything that happened, and there's no way that it could, but in a year or two, or even twenty, when I look back at this blog and read through the posts, I think I'll be able to visibly see a change in who I was.

This wasn't a year that I overcame any fears, or fell in love, but the little things that changed were just as important, and as readers of this blog you've all shared at least a few parts of that change with me.

I absolutely think I've changed this year, and a part of that change is due to this blog.

There's a very big chance that this is the last post I'll write on this blog, so before I go I
just want to again say how much I appreciate it.

A million thank you's for going on this journey with me, and I hope you enjoyed reading my blog as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Here's a good picture of myself to remember me by.
From left: Siena, a boy named Nathan, and yours truly.

Thank you, and may we meet again.

Elise :)

A Theory About Who and What Matters

Courtesy of: Word Press

You can start fires with your ideas and jump start the human race with the things you say.

But can you though?  Can you, a singular person in this world of seven billion people, really make a difference?

Usually, no.  The majority of the people that are born aren't going to make a significant difference.  In certain lives, yes, you'll make a difference, but in the scheme of the whole world, not really.

I mean, Time magazine only recognizes a 100 influential people a year, so does that mean that every year only a hundred individuals make a difference?  But maybe those 100 people didn't make as much of a difference as we think.

What I'm wondering is who made this list.  Who has the right to decide what constitutes a person who matters versus a person who doesn't?

My opinion is this: different people matter a different amount to everyone.  Someone I've never met, as of right now, doesn't matter at all to me, while my mom & dad and friends matter a lot.  But this person I've never met could end up being my college roommate.

The thing is, you don't really know someone will be important in your life until they are.  People like to say, "Oh, when I met my husband for the first time I new right away that he was the one."  I'm fifteen and I've never been in love before, but to me it just doesn't seem like that's how it works.

But maybe it is, and that's beautiful.  To know the minute you lock eyes with someone that they're going to matter is an amazing thought, but from my experience that's not quite how the process goes. There are people in my life that are super important now, that I never would have thought I would even see on a daily basis.  The relationships I have now are not the relationships I thought I would have had three years ago.

Take for example Beyonce.  I love Beyonce and so does the rest of the world.  But that doesn't make her anymore important than someone who isn't a famous singer.

A lot of people may know Beyonce, but she hasn't mattered as much as say a brain surgeon, who has saved dozens of peoples lives.  People who were husbands, wives, mothers, father, daughters, sons.  The people that were saved by this brain surgeon and their families probably love him a lot more than they love Beyonce.

What I'm trying to say is it's all in perspective.  You may feel like you aren't that important in the big picture of things, but you are.

Just think, when you were born, you're mom was happy.  She smiled at the bus driver her first day back at work.  That smile made the bus drivers day.  He was going to go home tonight, and like every other night, watch tv while he fell asleep on the couch.  But since the women getting on the bus gave him the most genuine smile he'd seen in years, he decided to go visit his daughter.

And all because of you.  Because of you, a father and daughter reconciled.

Every second we're alive, our lives are being changed by people.  We may not realize it, but right now someone could be doing something that in ten years will come back to you and it will completely change your life.

We're all in this never ending cycle of affecting and being affected others, and to me that's amazing.  The fact that somehow we're all connected by the choices we make.

So just remember, that even though it may not always seem like it, you really do matter, and you really are important.

In hindsight, Time's list of influential people should be seven billion people long, because every person alive, has made a difference.

Elise :)