17

On Sunday last week, June 2, 2019, I turned seventeen years old. Normally, birthdays are days of celebration, and while I was in no way feeling negative, I got a little superstitious. The most challenging and painful years of my life have been the odd numbers: eleven, thirteen, and fifteen. The better years being the even numbers, especially sixteen. Next to that, seventeen is a number that reminds me of Jahseh Onfroy, better known as XXXTENTACION. It was the name of his debut album, and it wasn’t a very happy album, the first words being, “Seventeen, a collection of nightmares, thoughts, and real life situations I’ve lived.” And reminded me of him, since he died last year on the 18th of this month, I felt somewhat poignant. However, largely due to him, I’ve spent a lot of time evolving myself in the past year, especially in mind, and for that I have hope that this year of my life will continue to be filled with evolution and that I’ll be able to continue spreading positivity.

Usually on my birthday posts I’ll discuss where I’m going with my posts, and this entire blog thing. This year there’s not much to say, I mean, there’s going to be more things that don’t directly deal with science, as you’ve already seen. Possibly some “part three’s” to certain posts, no promises. And hopefully the presentation, grammar, and coherency will get better, because a beautiful friend has offered to edit my posts, which they’ve been doing for a few of the past ones (thanks, I love and appreciate you). Other than that, yeah, there’s not much to say, because nothing will really be changing as of now.

As for my life this year, if all goes well I’ll finish high school, and to refer back to the friendship with my current editor, one of my bigger goals this year is forming stronger relationships. I wasn’t the best person between the ages of eleven and fourteen, and I lost a lot of relationships and broke a lot of bonds, and I’ll very openly admit that it was my fault. Although I don’t think any of those people are reading this, I do apologize to them and hope that their lives are going amazingly. At fifteen, I spent time learning more about relationships and started to form healthier ones. At sixteen, I practiced a lot of the things I had learned and formed many great bonds with many great humans. Now, at seventeen, as I part ways with many of the beautiful people I’ve formed these bonds with at the end of high school, I hope to make some new, very strong relationships that will hold out for hopefully the rest of my and the other person’s lives. Hopefully I’m able to fulfill this goal, and give a lot more to people, because in the past, I definitely took more than I gave, likely a prominent factor in me losing my previous bonds.

And with that I come to evolution. Once more, from the years of eleven to fourteen, I was more than a terrible person: I was egregious. I hurt a lot of people, I spread a lot of negativity, and I do once more apologize to all of those people. However, in the past two years, I’ve truly learned that people can change. Seeing it in Jahseh, and being able to do it myself, and seeing people that I call brothers change has convinced me. People truly can change. It’s not easy, and many people don’t want to change, and that’s ok. We should continue to accept and love those people, because it’s their life and their choice, but it’s still more than possible for people to actually change. So if you’re reading this, and you look into the mirror and you dislike what you see, if you don’t like your body, if you don’t like your mind, if you don’t like your soul—you can evolve. If you truly wish to evolve, picture what you want to be, where you want to be, and slowly but surely start the journey to becoming that person.

That’s it. That’s 17, and hopefully I won’t deal with and go through what Jahseh did at 17. I do love and miss Jah, and I love and appreciate the person editing this post, and I love and am thankful to those reading this post. I hope that this year I can make strong relationships, and I hope that I’ll continue to grow, and I hope that you all will do the same. I love you. Thank you for reading. I’ll see you next week. Have an amazing one. Peace.

“Doesn’t matter how dark it gets the sun will always come out again, and let the sun be a reminder to your that all negative feelings and emotions shall pass, let it be a reminder that you will outshine all that try to take you off your path, you are a star you are divine, your life is your own, your purpose if yours to choose.” “And when the moon comes, come to terms with yourself, are you on your path? Do you deserve to rest? How much have you progressed, and if and when you have, look to yourself and thank yourself for becoming the person you want to be, and thank the moon for shining her light in the darkness, day in, day out.”

-Jahseh D. R. Onfroy