I sit here reflecting on the past 22 years of my life and I have come to the conclusion that I am everything I appear to be.  Which doesn't mean very much considering the fact that I am who I want to be.  It's almost as though I'm a lost soul wandering through a garden of time  - but a happy soul at that.  I can tell that this year will be infinitely better than last year, yet I still fear what bad news this year will bring.  And now that I think about it, I'm only as happy as I am because of who I am, and how hard I've worked to become me.  I've always wanted to be me, but being someone who you aren't is always more of a struggle than it's worth. 

In my time of reflections and deep thinking and ponderings, I've decided that the best thing to do during hard times in your life is to make the most of it.  Whatever "it" may be will obviously be different from person to person, but if this makes sense to you then you should logically be able to deduce what I'm talking about.  In retrospect, the past makes a lot of sense - with a few major exceptions.  Things happen for a reason and I don't claim to know why - but I'm pretty sure I could reasonably bullshit my way through most of the relatively tough and deceptive times in our lives. 

I have a good friend who believes that when you look back at the past, it always does and always will seem instantaneous.  I - however - disagree.  The past is what it is and nothing will ever change that.  If the past is 22 years long, as it is in my case, it might not take 22 years to remember it, but it will most certainly not seem as if it happened in an instant.  Although, in the relative scheme of things, life is instantaneous, it won't ever seem that way simply because getting there wasn't instantaneous either.  We work hard to get where we are - or most of us do anyway.  There is absolutely no reason that we should ever compare our futures to those of who have gone before us - or who shouldn't go after us.  We are who we are.  We do what we do.  Sometimes there is no excuse for that.  Sometimes there is.  In this wirlwind we call life, you can only hope to do your best, and if your best isn't good enough, you can either try harder, or get lucky and just be better than everyone around you.  I, unluckily, choose the latter option - seeing as how the world as we know it is nothing as we know it. 

Sometimes it seems as if I have only me to be my own companion, but I know that this is rarely the case since I have a myriad of people in my life whom I'm lucky enough to call "My Friend".  My friends make me into the person who defines what it is, and who it is, that I am..  So in a sense - I have my friends to thank for making me into the person who is happy to be me.  For making me the person who can do what I do.  I don't claim to be great.  But I do claim to be improving and getting better everyday.  I sense and feel a change in the winds that encircle me, and as a result, I too am changing.  What the future holds is unknown - but does it really matter?  All I know for certain is that I have a future.  One way or another - I'll have the future that was meant to be mine...