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New Years My mother believes that the end of one year and the start of a new is an occasion to be exulted. To this end, she's gotten me and my sister on a cleaning rampage of sorts in the effort to leave no dusty corner of the house unturned, no hidden dust mites unswept and no useless piece of crap seen in its rightful place in the trashcan. She follows the school of thought which states that the end of the year, the very edge and end of it is a time to throw away and brush off the bad from the year before so that we may enter the new year with a clean karmic slate. To keep the stigma of the bad events of the year gone past away from us, we must cleanse ourselves of them just before the new year begins, or face the consequences of letting the shadow those events have cast over our lives continue to do so for another year to come until we are once again afforded with an opportunity to purge ourselves of them. Do I believe this? I don't know...and I'm not sure...but I think that I'd like to. It has a powerful appeal does it not? To find yourself suddenly imbued with the ability to brush off the shadows of your past as if they don't matter and walk into the bright and unrelenting light of the new year? It's a nice thought...and a nicer dream. I'm writing this now, not on the first of January of the year 2006 but around half past midnight in the wee hours of the 31st of December, 2005. The reason for this is mainly that I somehow doubt that I'll be in much of a mood to write then as I am now. I find that lately, writing and the expressing of my thoughts into words has become harder and harder and harder so I feel it rather prudent to write as I can when the mood takes me rather than simply when I should. This year began on a rather rocky note for me don't you think? Not two weeks into it and I was experiencing my first real heartbreak and all of the teenage angst that accompanied it that I sort of passed by in my years of middle and high school. I suppose that I should be grateful for it though. Thought it didn't come anywhere near to ending as I hoped, I suppose it could have been much worse, and at least this way, I walk away scarred but still alive and with a newfound, healthy respect for the darker side of love. I've learned that pain and heartache doesn't put an end to me as a person, despite what my more romantically inclined side may believe. I walk away from it with the knowledge that though it may happen again in the days and years to come, at least I know for a fact that I will be able to get up and walk again after enough time has blurred the pain. I have lost a few friends, through various misunderstandings and (let's be honest here) my own rather callous nature and inclination towards disregard for those I don't regard as part of my "inner circle." I take away from this the knowledge that bad shit happens no matter how much you aren't looking for it and that if it isn't fully my fault, I must have contributed to its downfall somehow. Knowing that I can mess things up royally, does this mean I'll completely stop doing it in the future? No. But it DOES mean that the knowledge of it will make me more careful of its possibility in the future. And though I may complain about another person's irrational or unjust behavior, you guys were always good at pointing out a time when I did the exact same thing and shut me up good eh? I've learned that your good friends are those that never seem to get tired of listening to you vent your anguish, even if you begin to sound like a broken record even to yourself. I've seen compassion there, an understanding of the fact that though nothng may have changed and you may just be covering the same ground over and over again, they understand your need to share it with someone else and to put it into words a few times before actually dealing with it. Friends, I've seen, can also serve as a person's moral compass, a lighthouse through your darkest days, shining a never faltering bright light to warn you away from rocky shores. I've seen friends in the persona of teachers, showing me that some things just had to change if I wanted to actually feel that I was becoming a better person. And of course...friends to make good memories with to balance the weight of the bad ones. I've experienced some good times just being with them, doing nothing together. I remember a bunch of good memories all jumbled together and mashed into a collage of sorts. I remember sitting in the Meeting Place at school for a few hours exchanging GHOST stories of all things...of getting together at each other's houses a countless number of times to sit around and show each other the movies that have gotten to us in some way...of the traditional going out for a new movie that we just couldn't wait to come out on dvd cause the trailers just looked so damned good...of learning to play mah-jong and the oddness that came with that...of being taken out to various new places to eat because "Perry, the food there is just so 'ooooh my god,'" good...of shopping with them, shopping for them...and before, after and in between all of those, the conversations. Numberless and uncountable, the many hours spent talking with them in various ways, through email, through IM's, through phone calls, with actual pen and paper letters, sitting around in a brightly lit cafeteria debating abstract ideas and face to face in a darkened basement having the pain in my heart pulled out of me with words...all of these things, I can't forget. I've learned that "family" isn't always just about blood...that just because you share blood doesn't really mean that they're part of your 'family' and that just because you don't share blood doesn't mean that they aren't. This is something I've known before but something that's really been driven home this year as my immediate family has become somewhat ostracized from both maternal and paternal family lines in some ways. I've learned that the things you do matter no matter how inconsequential it may seem when it crosses paths with another person. I feel that I've learned more about love, life, family and friendship in this year and the one before it than in all of my other years of life put together...who knows, it might even be true. For the year to come...my hopes and dreams? Resolutions? To be a better son. To be a better brother. To be a better friend. To be a better person so that people can look to me and think to themselves, "wow, I'm actually GLAD that I've met this guy." That's all I'll be working towards...wish me luck. Happy New Years my dear friends. |