� twenty three times around and still going � 2003-03-25 � 7:26 p.m. �
I am counting the last days of my twenty third time around... reflection has pretty much been the theme since I have nothing to do lately, but think.
I've come far from the fetus too young to be born... and looking back on childhood I sigh in exhaustion. People, without knowing true trial, have no idea what it's like to fight. I think one of my faults is I expect them to.... to know what ridicule is... to know how to rise above.
Looking back at adolescence and I don't even see it for the tall dark-haired boy standing in my view... nose bleeding from cocaine... knee-deep in whores and needles. Why at such a young age did I think I was big enough to change him? Why, ten years later am I still trying to?
I look back and 15, 16, 17... and I am laying on the ground somewhere, legs tucked beneath me, in-utero style. I am not crying... or yelling... I am silent... the world is kicking me... and except to swigg from the bottle, I barely look up. Later on... I stand for a moment to face him... I lie and say it's ok. It's not, and it never will be.
Those three years seemed to last forever... the beginning of all beginnings... of womanhood, of adulthood... of self-suficiency, of love as I know it to be shaped, of exploration and a constant, everlasting need for change.
I met a man of worth and devotion... a man, despite the threads between us, is no less than a masterpiece... and even now, though I don't show it, I cherish him, if nothing more for all he taught me about tranquility.
And after him was solitude and effort... ambition, journalism... uncertainity.... more pain.... and change. After him I proved myself to Amanda. Until that day, four years ago, in the Skywalk where in a flash, ... I suffered a blow from the past. Like a gavel of a justice unseen... And, I have no one to blame for that, but me.
And so I've been circling myself wounded since.... not really able to let go of anything.. thinking that it's always more before me than behind me... I think I've suffered by it, but I can't be sure.
I've seen far too many young people die in the last few years... and no matter what the circumstance, there is nothing fair about cancer, car accidents or suicide at 20.
I learned that bad things happen to good people... a boy I knew since kindergarten was lit on fire by a former friend of my brothers'... and all I could think when I heard was... I should have been kinder to Barry and more weary of Warren. But life doesn't work that way...
I make huge spur-of-the-moment decisions based soley on what I know.... or what I don't.
It hasn't failed me. It got me here.
And now, toward the end of it.... the last three years have been peaceful.... mostly. I am unhealthy, forever not knowing about my future... tomorrow or in my fourties. But, I live comfortably and I am loved above and beyond.
I never thought I'd be the girl at twenty-three happy with a job, less a career... I never thought I'd like going to work, and enjoy the praise of a job well done. There's nothing like a client sending you flowers because she's pleased, is there?
I never thought at my age I could be so incredibly in love and devoted to one... I love many people, surely, but never this way... never so wholly or unconditionally.
Until Blair the future was full what ifs and European holidays that never happened.
But living as one is different than that. My worries have pretty much turned to vapour thanks greatly to him.... and I wonder beyond my own realization what it's like to deal with me and the bricks I hold behind me... I wonder if it is truly harder for him... to know what he knows I've lived through... and to pick up the pieces when I occasionally crumble beneath the strain.
And in it all I have to say I don't believe in blessings...I use the term losely. I don't believe that anyone greater was standing over me... and if someone was, I am sure I'd hate him.
I believe in tangibility... I believe in who was standing beside me and behind me all these years... all these roads... I believe in the Grace of those who walked with me through the blood and sweat and those who carried me when my legs were weak. I thank them for their faith... and strength and the prayers they made on my behalf... if that's what they believe....
Above all, I've learned to believe in myself.... my own strengths... I know sometimes I down-play my capabilities and my serenity to the girl I am.... but I don't doubt her and I don't hold shame.
I am confident all the turns I've took have done me well... confident that the years I have lived have been the best years I ever could have lived under circumstance... jaded still I had to live them... but respectful for the knowledge they gave.
Approaching another day I know now that life is by no means easy... no matter who's living it.
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