Family

My family loves to have a good time. We love to dance and we love parties. So last weekend when my cousin Hallie got married, I wasn't surprised that my cousins and I were the first ones on the dance floor and the last ones off. We danced the whole night, right through dessert. I had a blast. While most of us live in New York, I do have some cousins in Connecticut and Georgia, and with everybody's crazy schedules it isn't often that we're all together. There are three generations of us. From 8 years old to my Great Aunt Yevi... I don't know how old she is. But despite our age differences, and some other differences we're still a family. And we still love each other. Multiple times throughout the night we found ourselves dancing in a big circle, or swaying back and forth with our arms around each other. I took the time to look around at everybody. They're my family. Times may change and friends will come and go but your family is something you're stuck with. I never really thought about how lucky I am to be from a family that's close. Things aren't always perfect, but whatever issues we have aren't big enough to keep us apart from each other. The next big event is my cousin Sami's bat mitzvah this January. They live in Georgie so the whole gang will be flying down for another big party. But until then it's facebook and a few phone calls.

The "kid" cousin table. This is only half of all of us..

Time goes by...

It's been a while since I've blogged (not counting my 365 blogging which is going really well - haven't missed a day!) and it feels good to be back. I graduated high school almost a month ago, which is still a foreign idea to me. Everything with Wagner seems to be coming so fast. I got my preliminary schedule, so it only includes my acting classes and my academic classes. It doesn't have dance or voice lessons. So as of right now, my earliest class is 1 PM and I don't have class on Fridays, but knowing me, once I get my hands on dance classes and voice lessons that will all change. Which is fine by me. I'd gladly fill up my day with dance labs and things of that nature - that's what they call dance classes that you don't necessarily get credit for, but you can take for the training and such. My friend and I were roomed together just like we planned and we're on a co-ed floor. In fact, we're on the border of the boys side of the floor so our neighbors are boys. This should be exciting lol. I still talk to people and everyone is still really nice and excited to start school. It's a weird feeling. Being excited for school to start. But it's also kind of really sad in a way. With all this excitement about school starting in 35 days tonight was the first night since the end of school that I started thinking about everything and everyone I'm leaving behind. I can't help thinking that times running out. In Mr. Gangji's famous goodbye senior speech this year he spoke about how slowly over time we loose touch. He wasn't telling us this to make us depressed, he just wants us to see the world the way it is, and as upsetting as it is, we all know it's the truth in almost all cases, and I guess it's good to know that in advance. But I can't help being scared of some of the changes that I'm going to have to get used to. And I don't mean changes of making new friends, or living somewhere new, I'm talking about leaving friends behind and saying goodbye to people that I'm used to seeing 5 or 6 days a week for 10 months out of the year. I don't know what to do. I don't know how to approach saying goodbye. I don't even know for sure what will happen next year, so saying goodbye might not even be necessary. It's rough not knowing. It's unsettling and I'm not a fan. It feels like part of me will be left behind when I leave on August 26th. Some of that I'm ready for, but there's a few things that I wish I could take with me. Life has to be complicated and make you think. No big change will ever be smooth and easy the way we sometimes wish it could be. That I feel confident is the truth.