As the days go by I feel stronger and stronger. As I fill out my routine every morning, the visions of the things that matter most to me flash through my mind. During the holiday season especially, I remember that I could be much worse off, need to be thankful for that which I do have, and shouldn't take anything for granted. Recently I started to see things in certain people that I haven't seen in the past. My eyes are open more and I'm taking more in than I have before. I'm going about situations in two ways, not just one. I've thought about people in different ways than I thought I ever would, and its actually made things more interesting. I've thought about relationships good and bad - past and present. Who said what and who hurt who and who I'd take back or start over with. Who I suffered with when I shouldn't have, and who I'd suffer more with if given the chance. Who was truthful and who was not all there. She told me she was done with him, but I know he's still around. Was I a test? Why did I put myself through all of that for months only to end at the beginning?? I look back on it now and criticize myself. I pile all the things I learned into my pocket and vow to refer to them when I need to. To not suffer through the same shit I have in the past, just to avoid it all together.
As the year grows to an end, I sometimes sit and think about all I've done. All the people I've met, places I've been, smiles I've flashed and tears I've shed. I think about how it differed from the last and how I can only hope that the next is bigger and better. I hope that everyone that has left me will go on to better things. That the choices they made were for themselves and came from the heart. I hope they have no regrets and figure out what it is that needs to be done. I hope that I can continue to be happy just being me. I envy Popeye for who he was. His motto was "I am what I am". He didn't care what he looked like or what people thought of him because he was who he was. I feel the same. Someday, someone will pick me out. They'll see me on the second layer and actually make me smile and not suffer. I'll get to add more to my life and start a whole new chapter. For now, no regrets. I don't regret anything that I've done in the past year, I only question a thing or two. I wonder if I had taken a different track if things would have been different, or better yet - unknown. How can your heart ache if it never knew? I suppose I'd rather not know at all than to have tried and failed.
Defeat doesn't finish a man--quit does.
A man is not finished when he's defeated.
He's finished when he quits.
--Richard M. Nixon
