large-scale oxford

Today was a cloudy and cold day. But even so, one of the seniors in our neighborhood - seniors make up a large part of our neighborhood - was having a huge graduation party and when me and my brother were outside we could hear the music blaring from their house. They were songs I knew, songs that evoked a happy, party sort of mood.
But still I wasn't very happy. I was actually a tad bit sad. I was actually a lot sad. Not because I was so disheartened that they were leaving, but because it reminded me that I only have one year left.
In some ways I'm ready to "leave the nest", like academically. I'm done with stupid teachers who would rather scrub toilets than teach, I'm done with stupid worksheets and busywork, and I'm done with pointless homework assignments and learning ridiculous things. I also want to travel the world, and I can't do that from my house.
But I also want to stay here because I like living here and because I like my family (most of the time) and because I like my life. I like how things are going and even though it can be hit with some bumps and rough edges, my life is pretty great. And if I had to leave it now I would be sad.
When I was really homesick in Oxford, I talked to one of the "chaperones", I guess you could say, and she said that I must have a pretty great life at home if I miss it this much when I'm away from it.
And I do. I live in a nice house, I don't have that many hardships other than school and I get to do whatever I want most of the time. It's a pretty wonderful lifestyle.
Sometimes I get really fed up with everything, but that's part of what teenagers do. We get really annoyed at everything and then we are fine the next minute. It's how we work. But most of the time I really like living my life here.
And now I feel like I have not done everything I could have done, even though I have had so much time. I wish I could take back the time that I had when I was wasting time doing nothing and reuse it now to do something impact-ful.
But I can't do anything about the past. I can do something about right now and about the future. I can make sure I can do everything I want to do.
A couple days before we left Oxford, everyone started freaking out and they were saying that they never got a chance to do this, or they wish they had done that. And fortunately, the only thing I didn't do was go punting. But other than that I did everything I wanted to do and more.
I'm going to challenge myself - and you, my faithful readers - to create a large-scale Oxford out of your life. That is, to pretend like you are on a vacation and you only have a finite amount of time to do everything you want to do. Not to think too much about the future, not to dwell on the past, but to live in the present - what is right now.