On Social Interactions...

I love being social.

There, I admitted it.

But for me, I think it goes beyond simply talking to people and exchanging anecdotes...I really really like listening to people's stories and telling some of my own (there's also a certain someone who can attest to my love of creating stories on a whim...but that's another topic for another day). I truly believe that a lot of the things we learn while in college come from the others around us, and that the composition of a school's student body plays a role in the retention of certain information about life. And, as vanilla as my school seems at times, I'd like to argue that it is actually french vanilla, with the specs of interesting people dispersed throughout, adding flavor to my life.

There are some people who have peppered my life over the past decade or so of memory that I've retained with delicious events and experiences. So...here's to you!

Here's to the words we made up and conglomerations of spasmodic motion that simultaneously entertained and struck fear into others, laughing as we document these occurrences in each others rooms, basements, cars, and at school, still wearing our plaid and knowing the entire time that we would always be in touch with each other on a different level.

Here's to the development of relationships that withstand the test of time, the pain of separation, and the events that make life the suspenseful roller coaster that it has been, twisting and turning, but never shaking off my sister's hand who has held fast through arguments, disagreements, tears, reunions, introductions, confrontations, secrets, dreams, and inspirations.

Here's to the awkward introductions across lunch tables, inciting a riot of friendship that produced wonderful summer laughs, language changes, html codings, conventions, instant messages, festivals, sleep overs, dinners, drinks, and all, with us knowing that it will continue to be fun whenever the chemical reaction of our combined presences come back in contact.

Here's to watching sunrises on final mornings, writing papers throughout nights, misunderstandings, misgivings, truth, disappointment, growth, maturity, and new facets to friendships that start fragile and end unbreakable.

Here's to the bold actions we performed, the questions we knew we should never ask, the late night calls, the bad television shows, the voices on the radio, and the nights on the town that have made everything worth remembering even if we purposely created a situation where forgetting was plausible but impossible.

And most importantly...

Here's to family who has never failed to make life the thing worth living, even in the dark moments where the sun seems little more than a fleeting memory, yet the memories are what keep us striving forward through nicknames, clumsiness, awkward emotional growth spurts, lingering physical growth spurts, birthdays, holidays, breaks, vacations, on flights, in new countries, with new jobs, meeting new people, writing songs, singing off-key, sharing stories, shedding tears, holding fast to one another knowing that there will forever be someone there worth knowing and experiencing each day with.

xoxo