It’s deja-vu all over again!

Here we go again. One more scratch on the wall. One more candle to burn out. One more year to end. What have I got to say for myself?

I did this for the past two years. I stated a notebook: each year gets one page to speak for itself. Back then, in 2004, I was pretty sure that was going to be the end of me. The second half of that year felt like the whole world was out to get me.

I lost pretty much everything I had: my faith - in God, in myself, my own feelings, and my own judgment, in the people I trusted and loved. Things stopped making sense, everything I dared to do ended in complete failure (plus a lot of pain for seasoning); nothing worked.

Everything I was crushed in front of my eyes: my relationship, my health, my friends, my school, work, my whole damn future. The fact that what I took for my new chance at real-love turned out to be a cheap trick, and the man I thought I could trust and love, turned out to be a lying, deceiving jerk was just one of those things.

One evening, in November, I remember it vividly because I cried for hours, topped it all. A routine checkup turning into one doctor telling me I was just fine, another doctor telling me that not only was I not perfect, but I actually had some genetical flaw that would a) make life a living hell for me, gradually or b) could be dealt with, by years of treatment and a very costly and painful operation, which afterwards would assure me a life of a real-life robocop (with steel-plates and screws in my skull). Lucky me - I had come to the one doctor who would've dared to perform it (him, I liked: quietly and calmy watching me brake into pieces). What was my choice, they asked?

So I did what only a very sensible, practical, down-to-earth woman like myself does: I called my ex and cried my heart out, for hours. I’ve always said he’s an angel. He sure earned his wings that night. And the jerk? He ‘hated’ me for missing his promotion announcement at work that evening; yet I couldn’t help smile when he let me 'have it'. He was right afterall: had I been there, it’d been in my best interest.

And that was my lowest, so far. I lost a lot of weight; I cried a lot of tears; yet here I stand, in front of you. A bit older, and maybe a little bitter (an acquired taste, for sure); lonely sometimes, happy occasionally. I don’t feel any stronger now than I did before. I doubt myself now even more than I doubt others.
I lost my innocence that year. I lost my dreams.

I’m not going to tell you now that real friends, people who really, honestly care and love you, will be there for you when you’re down; that when so-called friends lie, cheat and betray you, they do you a favor by showing you their real feelings; that the ones you’re left with after hard-times, are the ones that matter; that when a door closes, another one opens; or that doctors sometimes play god, and don’t know when to stop; and all problems have solutions, however imperfect, you just gotta find your own. You know all these, don’t you?

I’m telling you something else, something very useful in hard times: write down the good things that happen to you.
To remind you that, despite what you might think in a moment of despair, you’ve been better. And in the long run, even the bad things make sense – however strange that may seem. And the good and the bad alternate, as you walk towards the end of the line.
Oh, the bad things – you’ll remember those. Don’t worry. And you’ll be telling your friends about them, and they’ll remember it too.
Write the good things down cos you’ll forget.

Looking back now, over what I’ve written, I know that all those things – however painful, they helped made me who I am today.

If you asked me what I did with my life, I’d say “nothing” – cos there’s nothing that I’m particularly proud of. So many ridiculous mistakes shame me. Going back, I would make them again (be it in a different form, but still make them). I failed at the things that matter the most to me – my relationships. I gained no greater control over my emotions, nor am I any wiser with the years. I still have no idea what’s the point to it all, or what the hell I am to do with my life.
But all-in-all, you know… despite all the odds, I guess "I" turned out all right. I could've made myself a better life, and I sure as hell could’ve been a better person, but…oh, well! I’ll give myself a brake for the holidays. If only to impress Santa. I plan to ask him a huuuge favor...
Cheers!


P.S. Why do you think we celebrate endings?