Things I've Done Before I Hit 20

I'll be turning 20 next month. As messy and screwy as my first 19 years have been, I've done quite a few things that most people do way later in life, if at all. Some are great, some are awful. It's sort of a list of "when I was your age" stories that will be mentioned years down the road to the grandkids puppy. Most aren't terribly interesting, but I know plenty of people older than I am who don't know how to do some of this stuff and/or haven't done this stuff yet.

12

• I taught myself basic HTML. I needed it for my Neopets profile. XD 

13

• Got into fantasy and sort of turned into a little goth kid. Still a little goth kid at heart, I think. 

14

• I had my first poetry published internationally. I've since had a bunch of poems published.
• I got involved in my first serious relationship. It lasted 11 months, and it was great. 

15

• I started my business. 

16

• I developed arthritis after logging some intense Morrowind time. :( (This may have been earlier, now that I think about it.)
• I tamed a wild Tim. I still have him, but he still chews the furniture sometimes.
• Tons of health problems come on out of nowhere! D: 

17

• Saw my first concert other than a local show. It was Celtic Thunder because tickets were free. :D 
• I did my first major craft show, Oddmall, which I've done twice. 
• I dropped out of high school (unintentionally) and was able to focus much more on my business. 
• I broke my first bone! I was in a really minor fender bender, and the airbag hit a ring I was wearing. 
• I went on vacation with Tim and some friends. I'd never been on a trip without family, and also never stayed more than a few hours at a beach. It was wonderful. 
• I got my laptop. Best. Thing. Ever. ♥ 

18

• I taught myself how to make fractals. 
• I learned how to cook. Now I could effectively live on my own and eat really well. 
• I sat down and watched my first anime series all the way through. It was Death Note, since I sort of liked it and missed most of it on TV. I mainly watched it to catch up with Tim's TiVo'd episodes, but I turned out really enjoying it. I had never watched any anime until meeting him. 
• Somewhere in here is where I actually started hanging out with Tim's friends, I think. He had never really invited me to do anything with them, so it looked to them like I hated them and looked to me like Tim didn't like having friends. The few times we did hang out were sort of awkward. Now we hang out all the time.

19

• Started drawing digitally with a tablet. I love it. 
• I contributed work to 2 video games. 
• I tried rice for the first time in my life. I'm not super fond of it. 
• I published a novel. 

20

• I had best get a job, or I'm going to move to a place where jobs aren't a luxury. 

A Piece of Art a Day...

...Keeps the creativity coming. I think sometimes motivation is more important - and often more lacking - than inspiration. I've been doing at least one fractal a day since I began. Usually, I end up doing two or three because I get into it. I'm going to try to do at least one art piece a day from now on, whether that is a fractal, a poem, jewelry, or a drawing. After all, I had to draw every day I had art class in school, and the days I didn't quite feel like it didn't yield results that were any less artistic. The hardest part is beginning. I've sat at my computer for an hour before with a blank page, wondering what to write. When I start, though, it takes off, and that hour of trying to start was worth it. By the way, i attatched the fractal I made today. :)

"Freeform"

This blank page
Set out before me
Is so much like a blank canvas
That the words begin to form images;
Every line echoes
With such artistic flare
That it is an art form
Even the blind
Can see clearly.

"Time"

Every memory in this place

On every shelf,

Every wall,

Is covered with the dust

From decades of disuse

And an eternity

Of broken dreams

Burned to ash

On the pyre

Of time.

"Moon Glow"

To the left of me,
A window;
Through the window,
Trees,
Dead and lifeless,
Aged through years
Of wisdom;
And through the trees,
The moon,
So full and glowing,
Shedding its warm light
Into the room.

"Dreamer"

Smoke of ages whispering,
Stars filling its fog
With pinpoints of illumination
In the dead of night,

And then the Dreamer
Comes awake,
The dream lives with him
As he frees himself swiftly


From the bonds of slumber.

The Last Poet

Breaking dawn sheds light at last,

The sun’s rays ending the night of
Fluid imagination,
The ancient hand withering
As the parchment crumbles
And the ink disintegrates,
The words bidding farewell
To their master.

"Repetitive"

I'm not so sure that I wrote this with anything in mind, but reading it a few years after writing it, I think it reflects Dragonlance pretty well.

Here we stand amidst

the comings

of dragons, of war,

A forgotten tome's history

doomed to repeat,

A suffrage returning

with famine, with plague,

to eat away at us

As we turn to the blank sky

in vain

praying to idols

that no longer care.

"Flicker"

As the shadows of dawn
Begin to dance along the floor,
One final star lingers in the grey void
Of the atmosphere,
Keeping a silent vigil
Over the steady fall of
Snowflakes,
Before it finally flickers
And dies.

"Where Were You," My First Published Poem

Where were you
When the horsemen rode?
Where were you
When I met the fourth?


Where are you
As I lay in pain?
Where are you
As I close my eyes?


Where will you be
When my breathing ceases?
Where will you be
When my heart fails?


Will you be with me
As I enter death?
Will you be with me
As I leave this world?


I see as I stand in Heaven
The others that have died,
I see as I stand in Heaven
The reason you weren’t there.