Scrapbooking

Since the summer, I have gotten into scrapbooking. I filled 50 pages in a tear-out sketchbook, and when they started to fall like leaves, I treated myself to a real scrapbooking album and some 12 by 12 paper. The theme of the new book? Coming of age. Everything from September 2012 to June 2018. I have filled five pages. One shows me and my dad, one shows the entire class, two show me and my friends, and one just shows me. I realized late last night, as I slid the "Rainbow Pancakes" page into place, that the pages and not only slides in an album; they represent the different sides of me. I haven't been mapping out my life at all. I have been mapping out myself.

Me and my dad. I have always been family-oriented. How could I not be, with 13 cousins, 15 aunts and uncles, 4 grandmothers, and no siblings to scare me away? But recently, the touch between our fingers seems cold and dated, like something that hasn't moved in a while. That doesn't mean that we don't email, though; in fact, in the past 48 hours I've gotten about 15 emails from different sides of the family. Moving, yes. Lifelike, no.

The entire class. I still feel a little like the new kid. I don't have a new best-friend-at-my-new-school, a place to sit each day in English class. To say that the whole class likes me would be going too far, I think. I'm not a floater. I don't drift like an abandoned boat from harbor to harbor. Or do I? Now that I think of it, where do I sit in English? It varies. I certainly have felt abandoned for a few years, ever since... Never mind, that's for a later blog.

Me and my friends. With friends, there's always a kind of comfort, the kind where you can burp at the top of your lungs or spill a soda on yourself and you all laugh together. However, with new friends, there's also a line in the sand; you can laugh at the soda-spiller, but not always with them. That hasn't changed my mind. I've heard so many stories about people at my school forming forever-friendships, and I see the potential for that. Still, right now, this one might be a bit of stretch. Or maybe I'm making that up. I've never had so many friends before.

Just me. I like to be alone and scrapbook and watch Project Runway and read about whatever recent crisis is abuzz online. I like to be with my friends and sing and act and laugh. I like to be with family and play games and talk and eat. I like to be with the entire class and learn and write and bond. Those all feed into my soul, so that I carry them into my alone time. I am, by definition, more than one person. They all have the same name.