Reflecting on the past, anticipating the future

New Year's Day is one of my favorite holidays -- the year is a clean slate, full of promise and expectant hope. One of my New Year's Day rituals is to journal about the things that happened in my life or things I learned in the past year. I love seeing how much I've grown as a person and remembering great times. This year I'll let you in on a few of the things that shaped my life in 2009.

* I became a senior. I even have the much-anticipated sweat pants to prove it.

* I took the ACT for the fifth and final time -- cue the semaphore of angels singing the "Hallelujah" chorus here.

* I experienced senior homecoming, made amazing memories with friends (like running across the football field barefoot in the mud after Senior Night), and learned the beauty of a true friend. I learned how beautiful it really is how briefly we, as people, are in each other's lives and how much we can affect each other in just that short amount of time before we go our separate ways.

* I read a book that changed my life, "When Dreams Come True," by Eric and Leslie Ludy, grew so much in my faith and am learning how to trust completely in God and his impossible dreams.

* I pulled near-all-nighters working on homework, but have thus far managed to shirk the catching of "senioritis."

* I learned how much love I am surrounded by, but am also learning how to stand on my own.

Looking ahead, 2010 is a year of change for me. Simultaneously exciting and scary, I am looking forward to embracing each new experience. Here are a few of the things 2010 holds:

* My graduation from high school (on my birthday).

* Scholarship interviews, senior prom, "last" everything (including the spring play, band concerts and choir concerts).

* I will finally decide on a college and become a "college kid."

* Above all, I am excited about just living life and all of the unseen adventures that will entail.

I hope a smile comes to your face as you look back over the past year of your life, and I hope that, as you look ahead to 2010, you set goals that seem impossible and foolish and that you never stop working to make them become reality. No one conventional ever changed the world. I hope with every breath of 2010 you are becoming the person you want to be -- the person you're meant to be -- and that you get to laugh so hard your stomach hurts and cry a tiny bit, too, so that you realize how beautiful laughter is. I hope you make unforgettable memories, but don't waste a second of this precious present wishing you could go back and relive them. I hope every day you live moments of realizing you're alive. I hope you change the world for the better.

I hope this year you and I live heroic existences, continuing to let this expectant hope of the New Year carry us through next December.

Have a blessed 2010.

Senior Mia Pohlman is writing a monthly column chronicling her final year at Perryville High School.