I was procrastinating a few minutes ago, skimming through my saved images on the computer and looking for something to turn into a new icon for my LJ, when I stumbled across a picture that I took almost exactly a year ago. It was a shot of my bookshelf -- the one on the left, for anyone who's been in my room and knows that I have two and cares to orient themselves correctly. And it's interesting, because I started comparing the picture from a year ago with the image that I can see if I turn around and look at the real thing.
One big difference, really the reason why I was taking that photo in the first place: in the photo, the school's ACS plaque rests upon my top shelf. I'd just come home from the American Chemical Society's dinner and awards ceremony when I took the shot, and Mr. Fukuda had entrusted me with the plaque overnight. So I decided to pretend that it was mine to keep, and put it on my bookshelf, where all of my accomplishments tend to accumulate. I was damn proud of it. It's nice to look back at the picture and see some of the same stubborn, fierce pride in my own abilities. That's what that plaque says to me: it tells me I'm capable, that I'm someone I should be proud of.
The portions of the wall I can see in the photo are covered with glow-in-the-dark stars, and you can just barely see the Harry Potter birthday banner that hung for the longest time above my bed. For some reason, these small things remind me of being younger. The stars and the banner have both left my walls now, replaced by tasteful posters in nice frames which fit with the (finally) matching decor. But I guess there's still a few similarities -- the stars and the Hogwarts crests may have left, but the red and gold of Gryffindor remains prominent in my room's abundance of primary colors. It's one obsession, mutated into a more reasonable yet still important way of life. The red and gold for me are colors of power, defiance, strength. I think I see a bit of myself in them, sometimes, so I surround myself with them, hoping to catch glimpses of my better facets in their otherworldly mirrors. If the ACS plaque reminds me of what I can do, the red and gold and the stars remind me of what I want to do, and how I want to get it done.
In the picture, leaning up against the plaque, is a white half-mask that soon became a part of Katie's birthday present. But before that, it sat on my shelf, a reminder of life's duality. The Phantom half-mask has a new home now, but for the time that it sat on my shelf, it reminded me of my own double nature: both an optimist and a realist; both a romantic and an intellectual; both a feeler and a thinker. Now the mask brings to mind tears. Though it was just a silly plastic thing that my sister picked up for me at a party store, it stood for a while for the power of the tale which moved me, and still moves me, though not to the same extent. Nonetheless, though the mask may be gone, the Phantom still reins over my room, his red cape flourishing as he swings from the chandelier chain across the poster that hangs framed above my dresser. In either permutation, the Phantom reminds me of the price of adventure, and the price of love.
Another thing about the picture, which probably only I would notice, is that somewhere along the bottom shelf there is a book missing. Another fact which probably only I would notice is that the missing book can be found atop the bookshelf, sitting partly inside the little red basket which is within arm's reach of my bed and still holds flashlights, a pen, a journal, and occasionally hosts midnight reading. But I know which book it is, in the picture: Wicked, the novel which consumed my thought processes for much of the month of May and afterward last year. When I took the picture I was on a second read-through of it, which I don't think I ever really finished. But Wicked was an obsession of its own for me this time last year, one which compelled me to look twice at the bad guys and give them a chance. In a way, it reinforced what I'd already learned in Phantom of the Opera: good and evil, when so boldly delineated, do nothing but cause chaos and despair on both sides. Over the year, I like to think that I've learned more about appreciating the shades of gray in which everything invariably is painted.
The bottom shelf of last year might be missing one book, but this has been made up for in its carrying several others, most prominently those related to AP Euro and AP Comp. By this time last year I was done with those, but the books still stood there, testament to my scholarly ability. I had never felt so confident as when I stepped out of those tests and knew that I had written some of my best work. The most difficult part of those tests was getting over the fact that I would never get to see my essays again. Now I am living through an entirely different story; I have hardly any confidence in any of my test scores. But at the same time I feel like I've done okay. Maybe, considering the circumstances, that's the best that I can feel.
But more things have found their way to my bookshelf in this past year than have left it. Most noticeably, when the picture was taken last year, my top shelf boasted only a single gavel. Won at Santa Margarita, it barely counted. Though I was considered one of the best, I hadn't truly proven it then. Now, seven additional gavels grace my bookshelf. One more is from SM, but one is also from Tustin, one is from Huntington Beach, one is from the school of a great MUN rival and the only gavel awarded to a Mission student, one was gained in a Security Council (even though it was novice), and one is from a collegiate conference. These are accomplishments; these should make me happy, and proud, and content. But I've come to realize that the "fame" they bring is constricting. It brings paranoia, insecurity, and doubt. I'm not upset -- and I do know that I have deserved every award I have won -- but each new one makes the urge to compete even stronger within me, and makes me feel even worse should I happen to lose. I've set a high standard for myself, and I've met it...I just don't know if I'm any happier for it. I sometimes think that I was better off with just the one.
Fortunately, the gavels are not the only additions. Propped up against a blank journal or standing in frames, my bookshelf now holds picture proof of something that, at this time last year, I never would have believed in. Sometimes still I doubt at my sheer luck, but now to clear myself of this, all I have to do is look at the pictures of Rick and remember that he is very certainly real. And then I smile this funny, happy grin that I don't think I knew how to smile last year, and all is good.
Even smaller changes make me happy. Scattered across random shelves, where they did not sit before, are seasons one through five of X-Files, in their neat little collecter's edition DVD packaging. Something as simple as that makes me feel better; just knowing that I've got all of those unknowns to explore and enjoy (and let's be honest, just knowing that I've got all that good sci-fi romantic angst at my fingertips) makes me feel somehow more myself, more able to hold together. As geeky as the cause may be, the effect is nothing to frown upon. The Original Star Wars Trilogy is there too, a present last year from Uncle Kent, which works along with the X-Files to keep me remembering my roots, my past, while still providing links into the future.
Really, most of my life is like that: dealing with things that are rooted in my past, but whose trunk extends into the present and (presumably) shoots off branches and leaves into the future. I don't know what this next year will be like for me -- I don't know if it will change me as much as the last -- but I do know that no matter how many things about me change, fundamentally I'll still be the same person.
Before now, I really wasn't looking forward to my birthday. I've had so much on my mind lately that it's hard to think ahead. But now, but looking backward, I feel like I've freed myself up to look foward, and the glorious futures I see share their joy infinitely with the present. They say that change is the only constant, and maybe they're right, but I've learned that no matter how much might change about the surface of my life, at the core I'm the same person I was a year ago, or two years, or five, or even ten. Who that is, I'm not so sure of, but at least I know I've got some time ahead of me to figure that out.
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