Last day to be 18

I guess this is appropriate, to be starting my blog on "my last day to be 18" as my mother so lovingly reminded me on the phone yesterday... but somehow I never get nostalgic over these things.

So welcome to my blog. Bienvenidos, glad you could make it, I hope you find it entertaining/insightful or worthwhile. The name, Pomegranates and Passersby is one that very few people understand, but one that will always be with me and part of my identity as the name of my Kalamazoo College radio station this winter. I had my own station, and I think now I have my own blog, because there's too much in my head and I need to get it out there. I feel better already! Pomegranates and Passersby represents the unexpected nuances of life that could make your day or week... silly things that make you happy (Pomegranates), and the incredible people that make up this world, so many that we will never get to meet, but how we are a collage of everyone that is important to us, with our own hearts and souls at the core of course (Passersby). The two works together just mean: anything and everything in this crazy mind of mine. It just moves too fast.

This was also supposed to be my week without phone or internet, but that's so hard to manage these days. I am staying on Wildside Farm for 10 days on the Vancouver Island, with Sarah and Rick Juliusson and their two sons. I had this romantic fantasy that I would be able to pack up all of my electronic devices and retreat into solitude from my contact with the outside world, but alas: my ethernet cord plugged in next to my bedside table has mysteriously found my computer, and I have checked both email and facebook twice on under 24 hours (gasp). I am unsure how I will regulate this for myself now that I have set up such an important connection with the outside world (you, through this blog).

Basically I have come to terms with a few things... that it is very possible to live simply (homestead, as Sarah and Rick have done), and include internet in that life. I can totally wipe my butt with cloth wipes and update my facebook status in the same day. It really works. It's the obsession and anxiety I have created over myself in terms of the amount that I rely on electronic devices that I am trying to break. I am really struggling with that!

So yes, today is my last day to be 18... and what a year it has been. In a way I have entered a really strange, scary, questioning place in my life, one that definitely came from going away to school and just trying to figure out who I am, but I'm hoping that by turning 19 I can become more comfortable with myself and settle into my identity... except that there are so so many things still cooking in my head that I don't know how I feel about! So, so many things. But they are coming clear to me, slowly but surely, and one of them has today and yesterday.

I have witnessed true love, and true love in a marriage an family... true love that I want to emulate. Until now I have had no faith in marriage, and thought that one simple label could really ruin everything that two people have together. It's not necessarily the fighting and the conflict that causes this to happen, but just the distance that people tend to create with one another through marriage and family, and their inability to retain the initial excitement and inseparability that comes with the climax of love (or movie love at least). I know that every couple had that: that time when they were absolutely obsessed with one another, but I don't know very many couples that have kept it through the house-buying and baby-making, through the carpools and financial troubles, but Sarah and Rick are still "madly in love" and they're right at the peak of their family, and when I'm in a serious and possible married relationship, I want it to be like theirs. And you know why they are like this? It's because they see each other all of the time, and talk about almost everything, and know how they differ, and embrace it light heartedly or make fun of each other. The constantly embrace one another, or tap each other on the nose lovingly, to maintain their fascination or appreciation that they have for each other, and I know it will never go away. So: good news, I know it is out there, it just needs the right lifestyle and effort and mix of personalities to achieve it, but how do I get there?

Today, Rick made me aware of my punctuation use, especially exclamation points, because he READS THEM AS THOUGH I'M TALKING LIKE THIS!!!!! So here is a quick summary of my text-talk:
I want to go to the beach. (neutral, and a little regretful, but just solemn and normal)
I want to go to the beach! (just with a little more excitement and optimism... nothing too overwhelming)
I want to go to the beach!! (kind of more like a "pick me, pick me!" kind of approach)
I WANT TO GO TO THE BEACH!!!! (so so excited, like I really, really want to go)

I don't really know if that was necessary, but here's to a great day 1 of blogging, and being at Wildside Farm, and a great day 365 of being 18.

xoxox