On November 1, I turned 22 years old.
Celebrating another birthday gave me an opportunity to reflect on my successes, failures, dreams, and realities.
At the risk of sounding redundant, my reflections kept bringing me back to one salient observation: I truly am the definition of greatness.
I’ve been through a lot in my 22 years on this earth. A lot more than many of you will ever realize. In fact, some of my life experiences have been so painful that I will probably never speak of them again. Although much of what I’ve faced would destroy and demoralize a great deal of people, I thank God that they have only transformed me into the extraordinary Extraordinaire you see before you today.
However, despite my utter fabulousness, I must admit that I am still a work in progress.
So in the spirit of full disclosure, I’ve decided to give you a rare glimpse at a few of the less-than-extraordinary things about me.
Ready?
Allons-y tout le monde!
I snore like a lumberjack.
It’s a serious problem.
Oddly enough, I usually don’t snore if I’m sleeping while the sun is up. But as soon as the moon decides to appear, all bets are off! Sometimes my snoring is so loud that it even wakes me up. Fortunately, it’s more of a periodical thing; I typically don’t snore straight through the night, it kind of starts and stops intermittently. But I must say, I honestly feel bad for whomever I end up marrying; he might have to sleep with earplugs.
I laugh when people die.
For some reason, when I hear about someone dying, I immediately either smile or laugh. Needless to say, this little habit of mine has made for some incredibly uncomfortable situations. Don’t get me wrong though; I by no means find joy in the death of others. I think it’s simply because I just don’t do sadness very well. I’ve been such a thug for so long that I don’t know how to appropriately express any other emotion besides anger. To me, anger is really the only useful emotion, and since it's the only one I use on the regular, my brain gets confused when I have to use anything else in my emotional repertoire, hence the whole laughing-when-I-should-be-crying thing.
Awky.
I am unbelievably selfish.
Don’t bother asking me to do anything for you, because nine times out of ten, I won’t do it if there’s nothing in it for me. My selfishness is also the main reason why I generally have no interest in current affairs, social causes, or poverty. If it doesn’t affect my life, don’t expect me to care.
But you can’t really blame me though. I’m an only child. I didn’t grow up having to care about anyone other than myself. I honestly didn’t even know I was selfish until my freshman year of college, when a friend of mine came to my dorm and absently took a handful of cashews from a jar on my desk.
I looked at her like she had just killed my firstborn child.
For the life of me, I just couldn’t understand what in the entirety of God’s perfect universe would make her think it was a good idea to just take something that so obviously belonged to me. I didn’t talk to her for three days afterwards.
* * * * * * * * * * *
Well, there you have it.
I bet you’re all shocked, but I do in fact have a few minor faults.
Although I am working on improving some of these things, I would never want to fully correct them. At the end of the day, all of these flaws, as well as the multitude of others I didn’t discuss, make me who I am.
So as I begin this new year of my life, I am determined to make this the best year yet. I plan to smile bigger, laugh longer, and love harder. Every day brings another chance to become a better me. And I encourage you all to do the same.
I leave you all with this picture I stumbled across on Tumblr. It made my heart smile.
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