Summer has officially begun in the Baker household. Memorial Day weekend, a time when family gathers round to torment me and mock the joys and purposes I find in existing. We have the annual croquet game out in the hot sun (which we all know I don't get enough of living in tropical Miami nine months a year) where I almost assuredly come in last due to my incredible lack of coordination. Then there's the barbeque full of foods I don't feel like eating, the bugs to chase me around the yard, and the rounds of inane card games to top it off. It's the same thing every year.

I took off earlier tonight in my car, screeching out of the driveway in a very uncharacteristic way, not really annoyed so much as confused. I had called around looking for someone to go get ice cream with...but no one was home. I proclamed myself a loser out loud. So I left on my own, cruising down curvy Rye Hill Road along the mucky swamp lake, going faster than I should, the window open, the air rushing by to blow my too long bangs back from my face. Same old brown car, same old tank top and shorts and shoes, same old lazy hair in a bun style, no makeup, nothing special. Same old boring me. Have I changed at all? And I realized it had been a long time since I'd taken my car for a spin.

In that same moment of realization I discovered that I was glad to be out there alone. It's funny, but in a year of living away from home, on a campus of thousands, I've come to understand that you can be surrounded by people and still feel alone, and you can be alone in a room and feel close to someone miles and miles away.

I stopped at Mr. Cone and bought myself a chocolate milkshake, just because I wanted one. My money, my time, my decision...go where I want, when I want, do what I want... I reflected back on my younger brother's comment earlier that afternoon. He found that my hours of game playing, book reading, story writing, online talking, were a "pathetic waste of existence." He insisted that if I wasn't out in the fresh air running around, or cruising with a group of friends, or drinking myself silly, I wasn't really enjoying life to the fullest. I simply gave him a blank look and told him to have a nice time outside in the pool.

If the world is now mine to explore, why do I do what I do? I can cite all the philosophical reason I want, give all these glorious and glowing explanations for my existence, and still come back to the fact that I don't really know much at all. I've had the best moments of my life is entirely different places, doing entirely different things. From a Billy Joel concert in NYC with my family, to catching my flag in Miami, hearing the voices of my favorite people...to the giddiness of the new StarWars movie for the 4th time, or the sick obsession of a brand new video game...Who am I, and who is my brother, and who is anyone, to judge the way we live our lives? I find happiness, I find peace, in many things, and these things must have value to me, not to anyone else, if that happiness is to be real.

I wandered back towards my car, the taste of my milkshake creamy, sweet, rolling over my tongue, the satisfaction of a decision offering more succulence than the treat itself. What was it I shouted at my father two weeks ago when I first came home from school? "This is my life and it's about damn time I started living it for me, and making things happen, for me. I care about everyone around me, but it's time that I was allowed to be selfish for once in my life, and I choose now to do it. I am happier than I have been in a long time, because I am making things happen. I am reaching for those dreams no matter how much I stumble along the way."

I kicked a few pieces of gravel with the toe on my plain brown shoes, noticing that the sun had fallen behind the line of the mountain, ending the day that always marks the start of the summer season for my family. I think about the things that make me feel giddy...my games, my stories, Star Wars and Billy Joel...and I wish for someone to share that with who will understand. I know there are a few people that understand my need to drive across town for a milkshake, that understand my obsessions, my quirks, my faults... My thoughts drift to a certain two, one close, one far, who know me better than the rest, and I suddenly don't feel alone anymore.

I stop at the door to my car, my milkshake in my hand, and gaze up to the sky. The moon is just about full tonight, a round silvered orb hanging low in the sky, shedding a translucent light over my home town, and I smile to myself. My happiness is not like yours, little brother, but yours is not like mine.