Vote for Me! Or Not.

I've no doubt blogged before about not being in control, but I feel that at least once a year (usually during the week leading up to Easter) I am reminded that I am not in control. Usually I consider it all some form of divine intervention, but to those less inclined to go along with that take it as a coincidence of human will.

I ran for president of the senior class. The fourth estate and politics don't usually mix well, but it was worth a shot. I ran a minimalist campaign, putting up roughly 25 posters around the school and talking to people face-to-face. This took place from last Friday through Thursday. Thursday afternoon they announced the winner - not me. Which honestly I'm okay with. My friend Greg put it into perspective for me - do I really need something else to do and to organize?

Backtracking a bit, Tuesday I turned 17. They say that you're supposed to be wiser as you reach certain numbers of spins 'round the Earth, but honestly it's all arbitrary. I grow wiser with every conversation with people, and every book I read, and every blog post I half write and want to pitch. I feel no different from 16, or 15 for that matter (but I have a license!). I've said about three times that day that only two things matter to me on my birthday: that my family is there, and that there is chocolate cake*. 

That was the day my (paternal) grandmother came back from rehab following a knee replacement, and we had that chocolate cake over at her house. She and I are pretty close, so it was nice since I had seen her all of thrice since the start of the year. 

It is much easier to say that you know you're not in control, but it's a different thing to acknowledge and deal with how that actually works. We finished cake and got the call that she needed to go back to the hospital for something else. Because that's what she needs. Less cake and more hospitalness.

I guess that's what I love about Good Friday - it is something that usually is constant. The conversations and clothes and all the stuff that doesn't really matter changes, but in reality nothing changes. I'm fairly sure this is the second to last (or third) Good Friday that I'll be in Slickville for. But I can't dwell on that - after all, I'm not in control. 

*Okay, so once upon a time there was this coffee shop in the plaza just over the Carnegie-Scott border called "For All Seasons Cafe and Gifts" owned by a guy named Andre. Anyway, we used to go there after a day at the pool or in Scott or at church or whatever and I'd get two things. The first would be a smoothie (I wasn't a coffee drinker [I was like 10!] so I usually got a creamsicle smoothie) and the second would be a piece of cake. He called it "death by chocolate" and you could get a refrigerated piece on a plate or to go. This cake was THE BEST CAKE. Anyway, For All Seasons closed in 2011 or 2012 over some rental dispute or whatever and I was cakeless.

But then my mother figured out where it was from - and that you could get this Death By Chocolate cake. So last year I asked my mother to find this cake and have it for my birthday. We ate it at the rehab facility my grandmother was at at the time, and from then on my two conditions were set. Family and Chocolate Cake. For now.

Happy Birthday Matt (though you don't read this... Oh well)