All I Need.

You know how they say everything's changing constantly? It's true. But most of those changes are subtle, barely noticeable. Like a flower growing, you don't notice it blooming until a couple days pass and what used to be a bud is all of a sudden an amazing orchid flower. It happens gradually, slowly.

All of a sudden, I've realized something. I've changed. Not by a lot. Just a little. But a little bit is a lot, actually. At least to me.

Over the years, I've stumbled upon myself time and time again. Realizing that I've been growing up - and not just physically - but as a person, emotionally, spiritually. What I believe is my soul, something deep inside me, has been growing more and more, that thing that makes a human being so precious in this life. I've been not so much changing as opposed to "adding" more to my worth as a person, a living being. I've realized that I've learned a lot, especially in these past few years. About myself. About others. It's only natural. Being twenty years young, I understand I have a lot more to learn, even though, I must admit, at times I think I know everything.

To be young is to be foolish. But, as one of my favorite authors (not so much for his books as his personality) has said: "I was young and foolish then; now I am old and foolisher." Maybe it's our fate. In fact, it is. We can never know everything nor can we experience everything. But it's funny. There are experiences and things that it seems almost everyone has learned. For example, falling in love. For example, your first heartbreak. Older people, and I can include myself in this one, have experienced this. And so will those that come after us. As for things. For example, 2 x 2 = 4. For example, Rome is located in Italy. Those are simple examples, but it's those simple, or really, basic lessons most people learn in life.

It's when you've experienced things most people haven't or learned things most people don't know that you position yourself further away from the normalcy that I have grown to dislike.

I'm an oddity. But only because I've immersed myself in subjects that I find truly interesting. I've read countless books by Leo Tolstoy, read C.S. Lewis religiously, buried myself in the world J.K. Rowling blessed me with in Harry Potter (and that goes for all the sci fi I read and/or watch), kept up with my sometimes silly thoughts and drowned myself with philosophers' findings; Plato, Aristotle, Mill. Everything I've read, seen, been around, all of it, has made me who I am. I escape into my brain, into everything I've absorbed. And I soak it up, but, as far as sharing goes, it's hard to find people to talk with these things about, at least particular subjects. I guess it's not a big surprise. Most people my age...sad as it is to say, don't really THINK. They just do. And it's hilarious when I ask a person why it is they have an opinion on something, anything, and they answer with "I don't know." Well, I guess it's not hilarious. It's just crazy to me that people have never thought about why they have an opinion about something. It's one of those "opposite magnet feelings" when I meet a person who can't explain why they have an opinion about something - because there's so much potential there. You know, you just automatically think to yourself: "Oh, wow. 'This' isn't going to go anywhere with this person."

Probably why I'm such a picky person. It's not hard for me to make friends, I've just met a lot of people where I get that feeling of "Yikes! Must escape right away." It sounds a bit jerk-ish, but I can't help it and I won't apologize for it, even if it makes me look a bit like a douche. It's not like I judge a person after meeting them once or twice. It's when it's constant (and even then I give the benefit of the doubt, though I probably will avoid them). Because, of course, if I meet someone that has nothing in common with me, it's a turn off (and I don't mean that romantically or anything) - but sometimes, after awhile, you realize you actually do like hanging out with so-and-so, even though you can't talk with them about certain subjects and surprisingly you become friends. "Opposites attract." I'm friends with some people I NEVER thought I could be friends with before, so that benefit of the doubt I really mean, I don't want to close myself off to people who are different from me at all. In fact, it's often times those people who are the ones to broaden my horizons and take me places I've never been, to new mindsets I had before never seen or understood.

All this sounds like mumbo-jumbo....It's just...I'm really coming into my own now. I'm at that point where I don't care anymore. About perceptions. About first impressions. About what people think. Because I have all I need.