A new year...a new decade

I’ve been having a lot of thoughts on my mind recently about entering into a new decade…I probably should have started writing this when it was first crossing my mind, but knowing myself I always tend to let the ‘interesting’ things that cross my mind sit too long and then it all comes out a lot less eloquent than when it first entered my thoughts…I need to change that habit…

So I’m going to be turning the ‘big’ twenty in two days, a change for sure, its not like turning 16 or 18, it seems a bit bigger than that in a way, because I’m closing an entire decade of a chapter of my life, and to think that this hasn’t happened for ten years, and won’t happen again for another ten is a big thought. That and ten years ago I wasn’t even thinking of how big a change it was turning ten…I wasn’t looking back at how far I’ve come, weighing all of my choices, decisions, dreams on a scale and contemplating where I’ll be or what I’ll be doing in the next ten years…

Ten years ago I was more interested in the presents I would receive, who would come for my birthday party, how much fun it was going to be opening my presents and playing those silly little games you think are fun when you are ten years of age. It didn’t matter that I was coming into a new decade of my life, that I was no longer in the one digit age, but that my age had two digits in it now, I didn’t look back…I probably looked forward but didn’t think a lot about it, I didn’t wonder where I would be in ten years, or even the next year, I was content to just live each day as it passed by.

But now…it’s weird to think that this is the first decade in which I can look back, and look forward and weigh the choices and their consequences on a scale. It’s the first decade of my life in which I’m old enough to really care about all of that, and thinking that I’m already halfway to forty makes it even harder.

Things have changed a lot in the last ten years, to say the least.

I’ve moved at least seven times, been to two new countries, traveled below the equator, made a lot of new friends…and enemies, well I’m not sure if I have any, but if I do…I hope that we can come to an understanding and work tings out between us.

Some of my close friends have moved far away, had babies and gotten themselves married.

I’ve known what it feels like to lose someone you love dearly and wept about the loss, wishing that my tears would be enough to bring them back to life.

I’ve felt the distinct mark responsibility has on you, and how it feels like to be ‘on my own’. Knowing that ten years ago my decisions were made for me, and in the last four or so I’ve come to where I had to make my own decisions and not depend on anyone else to make them for me, gone through many withdrawals when I started making my own choices and made a lot of mistakes, learned a lot of lessons, and feel a lot ‘wiser’ than I did before because of them.

I’ve wept openly and felt the hurt emotions can have if you depend too much on them. I’ve thought myself to be ‘in love’ many times, but it usually turned out to just be extreme infatuation, or perhaps I’m just in denial about them…

I almost ran off and got myself married a few times…thank God I didn’t…

Been hurt, and hurt others, been sorry and been forgiven and forgave too many times to count.

So many things…in the last ten years, memories, some happy, some sad, some forgotten, some just remembered…but all there still. Everything which has come together to make me what I am today…

So here’s to this new decade, through the good or bad, through the hurt or happiness, may I look back in ten years and be content with everything that may have happened whether good or bad, seeing it as stepping stones, learning processes which continues to hopefully make me into a better person than I was before…

An Anniversary of a New Life

Another year has passed without you here.

I think about you, I wish that you were here with me, but I know that you’re in a better place.

Are you proud of me?

Are you proud of the way that I’ve turned out?

Do you look down on me from Heaven and tell others how proud you are of me and that I turned out good?

Do you wish you could have stayed, been more a part of my life down here?

Or do you now know the master plan behind it all, the reason you were called home at that time, why you couldn’t live a longer life?

I miss you.

Do you miss me?

I miss your bear hugs, your laugh, your smile, the jokes you would say, the stories you would tell.

I miss it all.

8 years have passed…or is it 9?

It seems so long ago that it happened, that we got the phone call, that I spent days crying, that I couldn’t bear to think of you, or hear about you lest the tears start falling once again.

It hurt.

It hurt that you left me at that time, I couldn’t bear it, I wanted you back so bad, that I wanted to die.

I tried to blame myself; I tried to blame others, anything to keep myself from blaming God, because I knew I couldn’t do that.

I cried myself to sleep at night thinking about you.

I asked God to let me hear your voice once again, to hear you sing to me again…I think he might have answered that request.

There are so many things that I feel like you missed out on, that I missed out on by you not being here.

But you are here, though I can’t see you, though I can’t always feel you here, you are here.

I’ve let you go, I want you to know that, it was hard, I cried, and I still think about you, and wish I could spend one more day with you again here on earth.

I wish that you could teach me how to surf like you promised, that you could teach me the tunes to all of your songs so I could finally play them.

I will never forget you, I couldn’t do that, you’ve never fully been replaced in my life, but God sent someone who tried, and did a good job of raising me, hopefully how you would have tried to raise me yourself.

Do you thank God for that now? That I had good training, a good upbringing, even though you weren’t the one to do it?

I thank you for everything that we did together while you were here, and that you’re still there to comfort me from the other side.

Happy Birthday Papa, I hope that you are rocking the Heavens into a whole new dimension today, and for eternity.

And when the time is right, I will see you again.

I love you.