Late at Night

If I've learned anything from my nearly eighteen years here, it's that when you feel an overwhelming urge to write, you should do it. Same with exercise. Because it almost never happens. Carpe Diem, right? Or...Carpe Noctem, in this case.

Why do I feel like I'm the only one who gets it? I have classmates who aspire to be actors, and singers, and musicians. Big, giant, unacheivable dreams that will leave them with an office job, a terrible marriage, and broken memories of the "good old days." What's so good about them? And why is it wrong to accept what life will give me? Did I give up? Am I just a cynic? I can tell by looking at these people that they'll never, ever get there. Right? Who knows. I guess we're the next generation and we'll need actors and singers and musicians. But you need to be world class. Nobody from __________ High is ever on Broadway. They just don't get there. Maybe I need to aim higher, I don't know.

Okay, here we go. Sure, I might come from ___________, Massachusetts. But who cares? It's not about where you come from, it's about where you go from there. Isn't that the most cliche thing you've ever heard. I always get cliche and clique messed up. They both have that little accent somewhere, thought I'm not sure over which letter. Crazy English. I might come from __________ but I'm determined to make it. Writing is one thing that makes me really happy. So I'm going to do it. I'm going to go against everything everyone has told me about not becoming a writer, but I work hard and I'm good. I'm only seventeen and I've had my name in a newspaper. By Laura Logan. The greatest three words to be in print. My first article that I wrote, that people read. I made a difference, though small, in this world. And why the hell not aim high? Keep making bigger differences and more important stories? The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and the Boston Globe all need writers, and reporters, and why shouldn't one of them be me? I get it, though. I get that life hands you bad cards sometimes. I guess the key is to not let them break you and leave you with an office job, a bad marriage, and broken memories. And The other thing I've learned? Don't tell people you come from ____________, Massachusetts.

Babies come into the world pure, children are so happy, no wrinkles or age spots or grey hair. No laugh lines or frown lines. Life beats you down, and you leave old, angry, bitter, confused. In a nursing home if you're lucky, being taken care of by young people who have much less life experience than you.

Summer. God, why can't it be summer already? I think we romanticize summer. Longer days and cooler nights and louder music, lighter hair, darker skin. In reality it's sweaty, gross, hot. Sure there are those few beach days and unplanned nights that turn out to be amazing. But for the most part, you still work and put on makeup and do your hair and get up every day and eat and breathe and live like any other time of the year. I think the biggest thing is that we appreciate the time off because of all the time on. School, work, internship, clubs and activities and going to the gym. It's what we need. Time, structure in our lives. It's what I need. But the point of all of that structure is so that we remember the disorganization of life. The best nights are the unplanned ones. The point of work is to go complain about your job to your friends while drinking. The point of all that structure is that it makes the disorder so much better. The best moments aren't made in a regular workout or interview or class. The stories you tell are about when you broke three exercise machines and then tripped and fell, making a fool of yourself when you got hit on by some guy lifting weights, or when you forgot your resume that you spent so much time on, or that time that there was a snowstorm and the power went out for days and you had to cook an egg over a candle flame because the stove wasn't working. The best things are the sex, the late nights, music and movies and animals and kids. Things that aren't orderly at all. Things that are hot and messy and fun.

Most of our lives we spend trying to make things normal. That's it. As people we spend the majority of our time dealing with multiple phone calls and trips, appointments and angry e-mails trying to make our car and appliances run normally and our home a normal temperature and our body a normal looking, normal feeling body. But it is in all those times that things aren't normal that we find the best, funniest, and life-altering moments. The moments we remember are the ones that weren't normal at all.