Looking Back On Today

WHAT I DID IN 2007, MY NINETEENTH YEAR:

I ran away from home just a few days into the new year. I received the Melchizedek Priesthood. I said goodbye to my best friend for four years. I got into poetry and philosophy. I got into my first real fight with a friend since I was fourteen. I took my little sister to her high school prom. I went to my first rock concert and met with the band in their tour bus. I saw my first R movies and started cussing. I lost one of my best friends, possibly forever. I was homeless for almost eight weeks, and in that time there were days I didn't eat anything, I didn't shave for a month, and I didn't shower for three weeks. I slept on the ground, on couches, and an air matress. I was chased by the police, in a car pulled over by police, got phone calls from the police, and rode in the back of a police car. I climbed a fifty-foot cliff and gotten in a street fight with a mountain ram. I met a famous movie star. I was connected to someone who made front page news. I held secret phone negotiations about five-hundred dollars, and was almost fired for helping someone. I inherited a longboard from a best friend, and the longboard became my first property to be stolen. I got involved with tarot cards. I could've been killed by a car that almost drove straight through a living room I was in. I suffered from creepy hallucinations for a couple weeks. I had a conversation with an oracle using three pennies. I befriended a diagnosed schizophrenic. I talked to radio DJ's about movies. I got involved with drugs - although I didn't use any. I finally mastered the back flip. My family went inactive. I was almost killed by a train for the second time in my life - and in order to save my life, I had to play chicken and run towards the train. I got my first crushes in years with two different people, then got to have them both as close friends.

And in fancy acrobatics, a rainstorm and hillside wildfires, and staring into a vision of my future by looking death in the eyes (literally)...I finally found the meaning of life.