An end-of-the-year reflection? Hm. Haven't done that before. And ah, time... what a scary concept. I want to say that I'm "following suit" because of my friends who have already done one, but the truth is that I've been thinking of doing one for maybe the past couple of years now, but I've never "had the time" to do it. AKA: I always scared myself off from it. Why? Ha, I was just talking this over with my best friend last night -- Yes, I'm scared to admit some things that I still consider secrets. Yes, I'm afraid to write one now, when it's already the second day of the new year, which risks dragging out things that are perhaps better left in 2008. Yes, I'm afraid that no one will ever care to read the entire thing and comment. Yes, I'm afraid that this note will never be as coherent or come out the way I think it should be. But I will try anyway. I should warn you that you are tagged in this note solely for being important parts of my life this year, and I love you for making my 2008 as it was: a time of memories that I truly am happy about. (Damn those rose-colored glasses.) But I can't promise that anything in this note will make sense, or if anything in this note pertains to you other than that. - - - - - - - - - - If I were to mentally dissect my 2008, I realize that it could fall under two halves. (Ready for an intense cross-examination?) Hate || Love. Is it just me, or is this so outrageously strange? Who else separates their memories of a year past into these categories? But I figure it's the best way I can start contemplating on how things have changed this year. Hate. I hated a lot of things this year. I have actually become quite an angry person inside because of it. Resentment is a silent hate that I have mastered oh-too-well. Specifically aimed towards my parents, resentment has been my main weapon against them. I do what they want to avoid the boot-camp yelling from a military father who always makes me cry involuntarily, but how can they expect me to do it with a loving heart and a content mind? I know that silence hurts them, and that is what I use against them: no worthwhile dialogue, no talking at dinner. I'm not allowed to yell, voice opinions, or slam doors, so surely, silence must be allowed. Is docility all they care about -- that I follow blindly, whatever they want, whatever they wish? I am not a loyal dog, though my dad still calls me "PSST!" whenever he needs me. I am their daughter, and I have always needed more than their obligatory love of making sure that I have a good education and that I don't grow up into unemployment. Obligation: it is the only reason why my "family" is still "together." But mentally... we are already so distant. Does love not encompass knowing one's child's dreams, goals, and philosophies on life? I suppose not. I have a confession to make here. I suppose that under this category goes the reason why Will Smith's movie Seven Pounds hit me hard. So hard. I have to admit that it's because after watching that movie, I was so outrageously ashamed at myself. (I'll try not to give a spoiler.) How could one man give his life for seven strangers? Overlooking the fact that this was caused by his guilt, I later realized that this resembled Jesus Christ, which became another influence on how much the movie moved me. I am so damn selfish, and idiotic, and angry, while there're people like the character Tim or the religious figure Jesus that die for people. It made me hate myself. So why don't I change myself? Why don't I change my outlook on things? This leads me to -- Circumstances are hardly a form of hate, but they connect very closely to my resentment of things. Circumstances are the way things are. Not how you view them, or how they are interpreted, but simply what exists at a certain place or moment in time. I honestly have to say that I strongly dislike my circumstances. I would like to say hate, but I"m afraid of provoking some people who see me as lucky. But the truth is that I am being crushed and imprisoned. Musically. Mentally. Spiritually. Morally. By parents, school, other people, and obligation. I think of how I could be so much more if I had the time and the support and the influence to do all the things I love. I could change from being angry all the time to being a happy person. But the circumstances I'm in prevent me from doing that. People then say that you have to change your outlook on things that you can't change, but the problem is that I believe that they can. With life in a constant state of flux, they can and will change -- that is the hope that I cling to. I am desperately waiting for something or someone to come into my life and rattle me until I cry, or I laugh, or I shiver. Something, anything. Either one changes first, and then proceeds to change one's circumstances, or one's circumstances change, and it changes oneself. The latter is something that I can only leave to God, and that's what I'm praying for. Envy has become a bad habit of mine. Facebook status: "Rini is feeling overlooked." -- meanwhile, I'm saying to myself, Get over yourself. But have you ever felt it? The feeling of being "overlooked." The feeling of being unloved, unimportant, and out of place -- or more accurately, out of existence. Such is when you realize that some of your friends seem to have stronger bonds among themselves and not with you. Or when someone of the opposite sex picks someone else over you. Or when you think that your friends are such dynamic people with amazing personalities which you could never compare to. It's such a false, misled form of hate. And It's often linked to -- Insecurity is something I often call "perfectionism." Right. Perfectionism, my ass. If you've watched any of my piano YouTube videos, especially "Bella's Lullaby," you'll read my annotations and think that I am an extremely negative person. But it's only towards myself. I, too, was talking this over with a friend not too long ago. I believe I have developed a habit of admitting and showing clearly any mistakes I have made that make me less than perfect. If I make a mistake while playing in a piano lesson, I sigh or I make a face so that my teacher knows I know I'm wrong. In this way, I escape critique and am able to fix the mistake myself. But in real life? Sometimes, it's better not to make it so obvious. When speaking of music, people don't notice mistakes half the time anyway until I point it out; when speaking of everything else, insecurity undermines confidence. I need to work on my confidence... but I have to admit that though I am different, that though I am untypical, I am still insecure because I still share the fear that everyone else fears: The fear of being alone. Another one of Will Smith's movies, I Am Legend, made me realize that perhaps my biggest fear, one that would destroy me mentally and physically, would be being the last person on earth. So, in a very miniscule and insignificant way, I am afraid of being less than perfect towards someone and anyone because they may no longer like or accept me because of it. And then again, I have learned from experience that perfection, too, scares people away. I plan on covering this in the other section of my note. || || || || || || || || || || Love. Finally, something that I can write about without the weights. This year, I am both proud and confused to say that I have fallen in love not with people but with concepts. It's a strange thing to have happened, and I can't really explain it. Music is the love of my life. Between last year and this year, I have matured in such a way that I feel not only emotion but messages in music. Good music strikes me deep in the soul, and overwhelms my mind and moves me inconceivably to a point where I can't even believe what I'm hearing. I have learned to harness music as power, as passion -- as the ability to captivate an audience whose attention is focused solely on me and my piano. It's such an amazing feeling. Friends keep me sane. Alive. Hopeful. I don't know what I would have done without them, especially in circumstances like these. The best friend love is the kind where only presence is enough, where we can stay awake next to each other in a sleepover or online or on the phone or in the back of a Manhattan coach bus saying absolutely nothing and yet feeling completely content (but exhausted xD). The kind that makes the phrase "It's not what you do but who you do it with" absolutely true in every circumstance. The kind where we cry together. The kind where we all realize that as long as we suffer together, we are unbreakable. The kind that makes me think of ourselves years from now, still together but grown up from the problems of the present teenage life. And it makes me hopeful and happy. I love you so much beyond belief. Not just for what you've done, but for who you are. I thank God for letting me know you. And camps! Ohhh my goodness. I love camps so much because to me, they are the equivalent of living with and among friends. -- LeadAmerica 2008: "Never forget," I said -- Don't you remember our Goodbye Circle on the last day? Holding hands in the middle of an empty quad -- we shared so much love that we were the last group to head back to the dorms. We may have encountered each other for less than one week, but the influence is still there -- at least, I hope it is. I hope that you haven't gone back to your normal lives forgetting those you once met. I never do. Family B to the fullest. A reunion would most definitely blow my mind. -- POE Worcester: Wow, talk about growing up. I go back to camp with the same people, and suddenly, things happen. People become closer, people become distant, people become attached, and then all of a sudden, drama ensues. But the important thing is how we have all been brought together by a love for music. Brought together by a certain mischievous man named Paul Jacobs, by late nights in laundry rooms with a deck of cards, by late nights walking treacherous dark forests, by late nights getting harassed by drunk college students, by late nights of policemen kicking in doors. Oh, the memories. I love you guys too. Acquaintances are people that I get attached to; the best word to describe them would be "random". These acquaintances of mine can be anyone and anywhere. The tour guide at the Hunter College open house. The old man that offered his chair at Starbucks. Davey Wavey from BreakTheIllusion.com. The woman at choir practice. The man in Hartford that helped us get our car out of a closed parking garage. The strangers that were discovered to live only a couple of blocks away from me. The strangers I met on Stickam. The musicians that I saw at that amazing concert. The couple walking bouncily down a Manhattan sidewalk holding their baby carrier between them. All those people who have stepped into my life and stepped out again, never realizing that they have left their footprints in my sand. And there is no ocean in this beach of mine, only time -- time is what makes impressions fade. I love these acquaintances too, in the way that I wish them a good life. I wish them that universal happiness that one wishes for all. Nature has finally caught my eye this past year. Guided by the inspiration of some special others, I see nature for what it really is: God's gift. Sunrises, shadows, starlight, cityscapes -- they are all so beautiful beyond what words can really express. I have caught on to a new hobby that pushes me to record this beauty as best as I can in order to share it with others through videos and pictures. Now, that leads me to -- Perfection. Now, this is something that I only truly realized last night. I fell in love with perfection. I'll try to explain, but I"m not sure if I can. I think that this is why my "love life" never grew to anything this year. Perfection intrigues, attracts, and captivates. But it is also intimidating, scary, and inconceivable. Perfection came to me in the form of two people, two people whose relationships with me never evolved as I had wished they had, and that makes me sad. But meeting them and knowing them makes me hope, because now I know that there are other people like that out there that have the potential of being the epitome of what I am searching for. For one, I only reached the surface. I witnessed his actions, his interests, and his personality, and loved them all and was able to incorporate it into my own. That's how much I admired him. He was perfection in beauty, music, and art. I showed my love through actions, but any person knows that actions die down without a mental connection. For a long awhile, I truly wished I could get under his skin and into his mind, so I could discover everything about this person that attracted me. Now, I still thank him for helping me evolve in my talents and in my awareness of my surroundings -- even without his knowledge. It was simply through his unknowing inspiration. I miss him, and I wish him well. For the second, there was a deep connection. It didn't last as long as I had hoped, and yet lasted longer than expected. Something kept bringing us back together, something inevitable that was never started, lived through, nor finished. Maybe that's why it has kept going for so long. I'm a lingering kind of person, I have to admit. I think back to the past a lot, and often wonder why it is no longer the present. This person only made this part of me more true. I think that what I keep dwelling on is the ties keeping me to him. Bonds that were so much deeper than physical that it was inconceivable -- How do you fall in love with someone that you haven't seen in real life more than three times? Someone whose actual physical presence in your life must amount to less than 30 minutes? I think that it's ridiculous. But the strange thing is that in some way, we ended up loving each other. I had no barriers with him. It might have been that we were so alike, so different, that every single part of me could relate to him in some way. All things good, bad, ideal, shameful, sexual, philosophical, intelligent, and practical. I could reveal everything to him. I still feel that way. Things that I fear, that I love, that I'm ashamed of. Secrets that have even been kept from my best girlfriends. But I think that this kind of perfection is what may have scared us away. It was a connection that was purely mental (it couldn't have been physical, seeing as how we never spent time together in person), and that kind of connection, I have to admit, is dangerous. It is intimidating having every part of you that was once kept under lock and key suddenly wide open to be witnessed. It is letting somebody in completely to overturn every stone, in the terrifying hope that he won't set fire to the entire place. This relationship never progressed; it started, evolved, reached its climax, and then flatlined -- yet without any significant events nor actions. Sometimes I wonder if I'm lingering on a perfection that maybe never truly existed in the first place. It was and is so very strange that I still do not know for sure if it is yet over. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . (...In the manner of Ethan Frome...) But then again, is anything truly over? We have ended 2008 just to start 2009, another year which will have another end, which will lead to another year, and so on. My friends and I have often talked about how time is merely a concept invented by humanity. Created by man -- Is it possible to be enslaved by something that one has created? Yes. Our lives are ruled by time. Mine certainly is. It prevents me from certain things and pushes me towards others. And the worst thing is that it most definitely cannot be stopped. Or maybe that is the best thing. As a person that has problems with closure, time forces me to face it. Face the end. Face the destruction. The "never-again" aspects of things. But I must also face the "inevitable rebirth," as Will Smith once said in his interviews. I face the end.... of tears, conflicts, and problems. At the same time I face the beginning of new adventures, new life, and renewed love. It is inevitable. Thank God for that. And I'm happy to be facing this new life with you all. Happy 2009. Happy New Year. Happy and new it is. I was so surprised by how each aspect of this photograph, which I took long before the new year, fits every aspect of time: The sunrise is the new beginning, the street signs represent time, and the fence is all that imprisons us from the old year... ...But as we all know, the sun rises. Love, Rini.