it's not an adventure if you know how it ends.

There's something in my fingers. What is it? Isn't it funny how my fingers can know something that my brain doesn't? Maybe there's something wrong with my corpus callosum.

Fun.

I need to have more fun. I need to throw my hands up in the air and stop trying to steer the rollercoaster. I need to trust that I can handle whatever comes my way. Sometimes you have control. But sometimes you just have to see what you get. A long time ago, before I was 17, I read a poem about the all-too serious age of 17. I get it now. Despte how the world actually works, we think that every situation, every decision we make is life or death.

I'm tired of worrying about what's around the corner before I even get there. I'm tired of worrying about several corners in advance. I'm tired of thinking that one decision is going to make or break me. I am in my senior year of high school, and I can either spend it worrying and waiting, or I can spend it having fun, getting in my last hurrahs. How much energy do I spend trying to cross a bridge that is still miles away? I'll worry when I get there. Life is crazy. You see what you get, and you work with it the best you can. If you fall down, it's ok, just get back up.

This is the only life I've got. So I'll have fun. I'll bomb it 60 yards down the field into double-coverage. I'll challenge the odds again and again. When someone tells me I can't do it, I'll say "Watch me." I will walk off the edge of my tiny map and go exploring. I will see and learn and discover wonderful things. I will actively seek everything the world has to offer. I will taste fear and defeat, I will know courage and triumph. I will not sit in my little grey house and say to myself, "Maybe something will happen for me. Maybe I'll win the lottery." No. I will go west and "plow the land, plant the seeds, grow food for the whole wide world." I will win fortunes and lose them and win them back again. I will have great adventures and love great loves. I will have stories to tell my grandchildren that will leave them wide-eyed.

I will not take the safe route. I will not wait for life to happen for me. I'm going to turn this place upside down. This is the declaration of youth. This is the promise of the next generation. This is my oath until the day I die; it will carry me beyond youth and middle age and old age and into eternity. I will live with abandon.

And it's going to be fun.