1. I got to start experiencing living on my own. Not to mention 4000 miles away.
2. I began school at a place I wanted to go to. I stumbled upon Essex, I knew it was the best place for me to be at the time, and it happened. Considering how haphazardly I handled the end of my undergraduate days at Rutgers (not without decent reason, IMHO), it is extremely fortuitous that I was able to find Essex. I applied and got in not through bullshit grades, not through someone-I-know or through being an academic sycophant, but through my own inquisition. I am proud of that, and grateful I had the chance.
3. I wrote a decent amount. I've had the opportunity to hone my essay writing many times over, in two different school papers and on this blog. Furthermore I know people have been reading, which is all you can ask for. On the fiction front I haven't done enough, but my ideas are constantly getting better. I just have to produce. It's all there, and 2012 will be the year hard work will occur. And pay off.
4. I experienced a long-term relationship in all its colors: fun, frustrating, demanding, lustful, blissful, comforting and ultimately diminishing. But after years of periodical loneliness, I got to live my life with another. It was a necessary experience, not just because I got to see what I had been missing out on, but mainly because I know now what I can live without.
5. (see 1,2, and 4) I was given the opportunity to crash through some comfort zones. When you hit a wall, crash through it.
6. I gained a shit load of weight, then lost it.
7. I learned I really like being by myself. When you realize that most of your loneliness is just the absence of gratification- and not true longing- you realize it's not really loneliness at all, but just a desire for an unneeded distraction. Thank #4 for that much-needed lesson. As Wayne Dyer said, it's easy to be alone when you like the person your with.
8. I learned I really like meeting people, because it's the only way to develop a real psychology.
9. I have a family that will always have an open bed for me.
10. I have those seemingly rare parents that bolstered, not hindered, my ability to succeed outside the caste.
11. The support from my friends is unwavering and steadfast.
12. I read quite a bit, my intuitions and ideas are being put to test and constantly being honed. I'm still searching for the best way to articulate what I think might be true. That's the most important thing of all.
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I've been home for the past two and a half weeks (it's great to be back). Expect routine updates here to resume once I return to Essex on the 12th.
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