REFLECTIONS AND MIRRORS

 

 

Dear Reader—

 

One of the most common questions I’ve received this year was “How is senior year going?” in all the shapes and forms it can come in. And for the most part, I think I’ve handled it well: I’ve smiled and said “oh it’s been a good time so far.” I mention how I’m just trying to keep my grades up and try not to let senioritis sink in too deep. I’ll talk about my college applications and laugh off how glad it's all over so that I can now enjoy the rest of my senior year and whatever’s left of high school. But most of all, I’ll pipe up about how excited I am about my future. I’ll talk about how excited I am to go away to college and finally be on my own. And when I roll into bed at night, I’m satisfied with my answers. Until that one moment, that falling sensation—that hypnic jerk—where I the truth floods out. The confession at 2am where the night is my choir and my room is the confessional;;

 

I’m actually fucking terrified.

 

Because I want to grow up. I want to spread out and fly but the future seems so bleak. There’s mountains of debt my parents remind me that they can’t pay for. There’s a failing economy that can’t provide anyone with jobs. There’s the mounting polarization of parties and radical groups fighting for overly liberal politics or excessively conservative policies. There’s that fear that I will never be what I want to be: that I will starve as an unwritten artist at twenty-three, swallowed by the sand of time and the binary code of a digital era with nothing but Facebook and tumblr. as my obituary and legacy.

 

But thoughts can get kind of crazy at 2am, can’t they?

 

Which is why I have to take a moment, take that step back. Remind myself that every point of revolution peaks at terror; it’s the climax that asks us if we will plane-crash into the conclusion or fall with grace into the resolution. So between our fear-mongering, apocalyptic shows like The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, and The 100, we have to remember that those are tales of realistic fantasy and we live in the world of fantastic reality. Where everything is possible, but nothing is probable. So cheers to that future, cheers to us in time. Our fates might not be defined but maybe the fun’s in figuring it out.

 

But before we race too far to the future, we can’t forget the past. Because like a tree, we may reach towards the the sky, the stars, and the great unknowing above but we can never forget our roots—what keeps us stuck and anchored to the ground. And to forget is to neglect the roots: we discard the past and we topple, going from wise oaks to decaying logs. Which has been what this portfolio has seemed to be about: a chance at reflection and a nod to the past as we chase the future.

 

Most of it was based on the fact that it’s college season, where we whittle away at our ammunition of words and forge the metal barrels of our successes, hoping our best shot at the rest of our lives. But it always seemed ironic to me that in order to unlock that future, we have to melt a key out of the past. A majority of colleges ask about your family, your background; they want you to relive your best and worst moments. They don’t really ask about your future—not directly—and they don’t seem to have an interest in your aspirations. They want to know what you’ve done and how you’ve proved your worth. They want the numbers and the certificates and the great metal awards. They want to know what a dumb tweenager has done to prove they’re exceptional—

 

Which is fucking bullshit if you ask me, since I was busy fussing over wild cats in clans with Native-American-rip-off-esque names when I was twelve. Not my future.

 

But, here I digress.

 

So let me reroute back to the past to his portfolio. Back to the fact that 2015 is another year where I’ve woken up all over again. And I every year, I always feel like I’m saying that I’m  “finally waking up”—that I’m a changed person and this is who I am and I love it! Which isn’t exactly untrue; I do wake up again every new year, every time I figure out something new about myself or the world. But I just think that the fact of the matter is that every time I wake up, I fall back asleep in this new person I’m in. The trick is just to make sure I’m always waking up and not securely riding out my REM cycle into death. Because each time I open my eyes, I’m making sure I’m tackling the world—I’m making sure that with every end of the annual night, I’m keeping up with the times and staying grounded in this world.

 

Well, it’s either that, or we have something like Inception on our hands: I keep waking up through the many layers of dream sequences and maybe some day, I’ll wake up into the real world. I’ll wake up in nirvana, wherever that might be.

 

But until then, I’ve only got my past under my belt and slung over my back as I head in towards the future and it’s winding path. And on my way, I leave this little milestone, this little end of the year celebration with a physical cover and last page of the chapter. Allow me to show you the beginning of the end to everything I ever knew and anything anyone can ever prepare me for. Let me introduce to you everything I’m leaving behind and taking with me. My fears, my dreams, my past, and my future present to you—