Who do I still think I am??

This one's about 19, and the recap.

30DBC PROMPT: "If you could go back to when you were 19, would you? Would you prefer to have all the knowledge you have now, or start completely fresh?"

Well, good morning to all of you out there! And a very special happy birthday wish to our own Emily , who turns 19 today and is now of legal drinking age in the great social atmosphere of Canada (Brother Nature can back me up on that). Now I can say with actual truth that I am twice her age, and therefore capable to address today's entry from that unique perspective.

I actually liked being 19. I was removed from all the pressures and nuisances of high school. I had taken a year off between graduating and starting college, and I made some true lifelong friends away from the environment I loathed. I had a new sense of popularity in that people paid attention to me not because I was notorious one way or another, but because they actually liked me. It truly was a time of change for me, and I was ready to embrace it.

Having a driver's license and credit cards helped.

But looking back, because hindsight is always 20/20 (sorry for the cliche), I know I would've handled a few things differently. If I knew at 19 what I know at 38, who wouldn't? But hey, it's part of the learning process we go through to become adults. Look at it from this perspective: how many of us would hire our 19 year old selves for the jobs we have now? How many of us would be friends with that guy or gal now? How else would we have navigated life if we chose to alter the paths we actually took?

Valid questions. The responses aren't easy. That was a critical year for me, and I feel like I handled it quite well. Ask me about 29, and I'll give you a different answer (I totally bombed at being 29). Hell, I didn't do so great at being 20 or 21 either. But 19 was a pretty good time...I'd go to school all day, work the entire evening, then go out for coffee all night with friends at Perkins, take a ten minute nap, and do it all over again...I'd sleep on the two hour bus ride to ECC South, or maybe do some homework or studying, and my job kinda was my social life being a Team Leader at Arby's...all my friends were there working with me anyway, and the other Team Leader was also my bus mate as she went to another ECC campus, downtown.

Yeah, 19 was a pretty stellar year in the grand scheme of things. I just wish I would've kept my attention to detail and carried it over into future decades. But that's what living's for...life, to paraphrase a quote from ex-New York governor (and father of the current governor) Mario Cuomo, isn't joy or happiness, but motion. We have to learn how to ride all of the ups and downs...advice I didn't need back then, but it's always stuck with me when I first heard it in my mid-twenties.

Anyway, happy birthday Emily. If your travels in NY during school find you being north of the border, I suggest Clifton Hill. And if Club Paradise is still operating, definitely hit that place also. But most importantly, you'll learn a lot about yourself this year, maybe more than ever.

BCF PROMPT: "Give us your personal highlight and lowlight of 2013."

Man, I don't think in those terms anymore. I'm happy when I don't have to stagger out of bed, and my lows are NSFW and beyond (which explains partially why I'm so heavily medicated).

I think I can sum up both with one simple sentence (and an explanation). I got to reconnect with some family and friends while taking care of my uncle's property in Connecticut after he passed away. I don't know how it gets easier to say that.

I won't write a eulogy here, or share details. I hadn't seen him in quite a long time. But CT is gorgeous...while I'm accepting living in downtown Cortland, Windsor Locks seems like a pretty bomb-ass community too. If I knew I could have a job there, I'd totally move into the house and drive his Ford pickup. That would solve the problem of trying to sell his house. I doubt I could finance a motor home and creep up on the left coast if I were so inclined once his house sells.

But I'm straying from the point.

You want a highlight? Sleeping on someone else's couch rather than my bed (thanks mom). And a lowlight? Not knowing cats would wander out of another house I was staying at. I became an enemy for that misstep (and I'm sorry a million times over, lktropuckr).

It cost me a friend and an ally in a place I don't know anything about. Figuring out how to get over that and myself was a big part of the last half of 2013.

If I have any regrets from the past year, it'd be not expressing my adoration for the check-in girl at the hotel we stayed in while getting my uncle's place situated to sell. She was certainly adorable, but I think she was occupied by some thuggish-looking dude who always seemed to be around.

Well, 2013 is over with anyway. No sense in dwelling on the past.

MUSICAL BREAK!!

Are we one with believing that another new year will bring us something we didn't get in the past? I think I used up all my resolutions in the last entry. Let's enjoy this instead.

How long do we take this chance not to celebrate?

THE DAILY BOX SCORE:

2014: Wait, did that really happen? Pics or it didn't happen. Oh wait...it did.

Just because I can, and the Sabres aren't worth cheering about so far in 2014.

This year also hasn't started out the way I hoped it would in a blogging sense. When you need to be asked twice to re-log in to your WDC account while writing an entry, something's gotta change. Of course, trying to nap twice while oversleeping this morning didn't help much either.

And on that note, I'm going back to bed calling it a day here on WDC. After I check out the rest of the entries in this month's "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" . It's too early in January to feel so worn out...but that's something else I'll have to look into this year. Peace, get your nap on, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!