Enjoying the Moment

I'm not good at enjoying the moment. Sometimes I contribute it to me just not being an "enjoy the moment" kind of person. Which I've decided is the lamest excuse. 

Something dangerous clicked in my head mid-semester in 7th grade when I was given a progress report for the first time. That was the moment I learned that I could calculate my class average after every test and every homework assignment and potentially control my academic fate, as opposed to simply doing my best like any normal person. That day my neuroses went from being an above-average worrier (Example: I hope my family doesn't die in a freak accident today.) to being an above-average worrier and a control freak. (Example: I hope my family doesn't die in a freak accident today. In the mean time, let's focus all our energy on graduating with a 4.0.)

And while graduating valedictorian from high school was really fun, Biology Honors was not worth crying over. (I hadn't even gotten a bad grade yet, it was just scary. It was the first time I really had to study and the day I realized that I would never understand science as easily as I could understand Jane Austen. I did ace the class though, because that's how being a little crazy can benefit you sometimes.)

As we've been going through the stages of buying a house, I've been trying harder to enjoy it and not get bogged down, by well, scenes like this:

And focus on scenes like my gorgeous flower garden:


(And figuring out how not to kill them.)

As I was unpacking this weekend, I found my high school scrapbooks and photo albums. My favorite thing about these items is that they're filled with pictures of people who I still talk to and keep in touch with and are still some of my best friends. I have forgotten about cell osmosis, but I remember sitting in Amy's kitchen with Sarah and a Velveeta cheese log trying to learn about it. And that moment is what matters in the long run.