Cross-posted from today's 750 words

I really do have the most amazing people in my life, and I appreciate it so, so much. I have parents who love me, even when I mess up, and even though they don't quite always understand where I'm coming from. I have friends who love me unconditionally, who will listen to me rant, cry, rave, and marvel at the wonders of life. Friends who will allow me to cry in their arms one day and squeal excitedly about something stupid and juvenile the next. Friends with whom I can make dinner, friends with whom I can shop. Some with whom I can gossip and others still who I can joke around with.

I've even got friends who I can share intimate stories with and the most intimate inner workings of my mind. Heck, I've even got friends who I can share physical intimacies with. Intimacies that stretch far beyond ordinary friendship and affection.

I love my friends. I love my family. I love my life.

I have things that I can complain about, sure. But so does everyone. And my complaints are mainly trivial in the grand scheme of life. Overall, my life is amazing. I am happier than I have ever been in my entire life, and I'm loving it. Even things that bring me to tears, things that make my day seem horrible are trivial enough that I don't have to dwell on them long.

Thanks to my friends and family, thanks to York and its community, thanks to Pond and to Laura and to Scott and yes, even thanks to Jamaal... my life is wonderful.  I don't know how to express the extent of my happiness with my life. I'm growing up and moving along just fine. I am gifted, blessed, intelligent, beautiful, loving, kind, and more. And I'm ready to take on the world.

I'm missing school a lot right now because I'm missing the freedom. It's not stopping me from being happy at all, just that I'm missing being close to my friends. The great thing is that there are only twenty seven sleeps left until I move into my apartment. Until I become a fully fledged adult. Until I am reunited with late night conversations and pillow talk and laughing until 3am.

And yes, the responsibilities that come with living on my own. Cleaning, cooking, baking, laundry and groceries. And the responsibilities of school. Of homework and studying, reading and essays. Of graduation come June.

I graduate this year. It is both a scary and an exciting proposition. I am growing up, growing into me. Becoming an adult, a person of society. An active member of my community. Etc.

Growing up can be difficult, but it is also exciting in its own way. It means that I have molded and changed myself according to my surroundings, according to situations and consequences, and because of both prior actions and future hopes and dreams and aspirations.

I was thinking about writing this morning because I had an idea for a story. I was thinking about writing about my friends and I and our adventures, but as if we'd known each other as kids. A series of short stories relating our adventures and exploring the personalities that I think my friends would have had as a kid. Or rather, how their personalities now would be represented in ten year olds. For now, it is just an idea. Something that needs to be worked out and a more decisive plot worked upon, and a bunch of other work to do. But I want to write.

I want to write, I want to bake, I want to sew, and I want to dress up in fancy lingerie and dance around my living room.

I've got a long way to go before everything is completely stable for me. And before everything in my future is settled. In fact, I know that I cannot settle my future from here. I cannot skip ahead twenty years and my likes and wants and interests might and can change at any time. I am growing. I am fluid. I am here.

But I can work toward something. However likely or unlikely it may seem right now in this reality. But right now, things in my future are looking really bright. I am smiling and laughing and crying and an emotional roller coaster. I am beautiful and ugly and rich and poor. All of the things which I am simultaneously. Straight and lesbian, bisexual and straight, cisgendered and fluid, male and female, intelligent and naive. A myriad of other things which all relate to my abundance of life experience, and my lack of it.

I am here to enjoy the moment, to enjoy this experience, to be me. And I am open to being love for that. Open to being hated, despised, questioned, exposed. I am here to be judged. And to be not judged.

I am ready to have an opinion. To question and gain knowledge and grow from it. I am ready to take on the world. One issue at a time. One question at a time. One person at a time.

The world is ready and waiting. Ready and waiting for me to jump out and attack it. To change it in some way. To place my mark in society, in my community, and on you.

I don't know how to do it yet. How to start, where to begin, what to tackle first. But that's all for later, I'll figure it out as I go. Now is a time for growing, for experience, and for enjoyment.

It is time for me to be the best person that I can possibly be, and I am ready. It's my time to shine, so watch out world. Here I am.