Did it feel good? Writing it out? Writing things down has power. It makes things incarnate. Ursula LeGuin made the conceit in the Earthsea series that you can't do magic on someone or something unless you know its name. The name you're looking for is "fate." I wish I knew everyone's nickname All their slang and all their sayings Every way to show affection How to dress to fit the occasion I wish we all waved… You will walk a tiny percentage of this earth. You will meet a vanishingly small percentage of those who walk it with you. But you will see attack ships on fire of the shoulder of Orion. You shall watch sea beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. And all these moments will be lost in time like tears in rain. So make it count. Those jelly beans of yours. Why make them worry-flavored? You've gotta eat 'em or they'll get stale. Pick the tastiest ones. Because that video of yours? It's a lie. You don't have a limited number of jelly beans. You have a limited stomach and if you choose wisely, your gut will explode from sheer joy of all the delicious jelly beans you consumed. Choose poorly and you'll give up after a couple handfuls of snot-flavored jelly bellies. Fuck that. I firmly believe that you will always regret the things you don't do more than the things you do. Know what? I've never cracked my skull open in a golf cart in Mexico. And maybe that puts me at an organic advantage over you but muthafuckin' fate, yo. It's a river. We all ride it. It bumps some of us up more than others and some of us are goddamn surfing. A lot of it is luck of the draw but a lot of it is determination. Li'l secret: I was deathly afraid of losing my mind until I put a social worker through grad school. She spent her days bouncing Alzheimer's patients from nursing home to nursing home. Her perspective? "Yeah, it sucks when you know you're losing it but after that, Alzheimer's is a great way to go. The people who really suffer are those around you." So hey - maybe you go crazy. At least have fun and go crazy. beats the shit out of moping in fear and going crazy. There's only so much you have control over and worrying about the shit that's beyond your abilities does nothing but cause ulcers. People who are old enough to know better say "high school is the best years of your life." Lemme tell ya - if that happens to be true for them, they fucked up but good. Your future is an unwritten book. You can partition it out into how many jelly beans you spend pooping or you can recognize that we spend so much time feeding our pets because pets are awesome. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, beyotch. Put pen to paper and write yourself a life. Do it up right - you deserve it. And don't worry what anybody else will think… …because they really don't care.