Seeing as how I started this semester with a revelation that it took weeks to put into words, it seems fitting that I should end it the same way.
It’s been a long time since last we talked.
I’ve been away for a while, doing a lot of thinking.
I’ve learned a lot about my self in the past few months, using the time for useful recollection. In the meantime, I’ve been trying to force myself to say something, write something, do something meaningful. But how can I put thoughts into words, when the thoughts themselves will not come out of hiding. I suppose I should start at the beginning though, and see what happens.
I’ve fallen in love this semester.
This in and of itself is probably not news enough to shake the world to its core, but for me it is a definite change. It’s an interesting position to be in for a hardcore cynic such as myself. Sometimes I laugh at myself, and sometimes I just find myself in awe of everyday things.
Time was I didn’t believe in love. It was just a fancy at best or at worst it was just some kind of chemical, a drug. I wondered if it was just a fairy tale figment of a Hollywood machine designed to sell dreams.
I find though, that love is not just about the other person. It’s also about me too. It’s about finding your true self so that you can share it with someone else. But how do you find yourself, when you don’t really know where to begin looking. I’ve had to take some long walks down alleys I would just as soon forget, in an attempt to find out.
I looked deep within myself, trying to find some hint of who I was. I was afraid that I was evil, no good and worthless, and even more afraid that I was good.
I sought counsel among my friends, professors and associates, in attempt to give myself meaning.
In the end though, it was I who had to seek out, find and face myself, to decide. I would like to say it was easy. It wasn’t.
I don’t believe one is really grown up until one is old enough to have regrets, and learns to live with them. I found myself recalling things I had not thought about in years.
Not repressed, just forgotten about. Those life-scarring moments we all would prefer to leave behind. I found I was reconsidering my opinion of myself, wondering if I had ever really taken the time to get to know myself to begin with.
But every memory has its price. Old guilt and shame surfaced, sins long forgotten, that I had chosen to ignore as opposed to forgiving myself. For everyone has something in their life they wish that they could go back and undo.
An errant word, a wrong step, long since gone, and we find that we are alone, forced to beg grace from the harshest judge: ourselves.
It is a testament to maturity to forgive ourselves, when none remains whom we may ask forgiveness of.
I would like to say that there is a dramatic story, a lamentable, documented process, a heroic stand, an epiphany, but in the end it was quiet. A few tears, a hug and deep a sense of relief.
No applause, just me, one other person and four quiet walls. I’ve discovered that that is the way life is.
More than anything, it is not the times of war that we remember, nor the battles, but the silence before and after, when life is naked and there is no special polish, no lights, no sound. Then just as quickly as it comes, it is gone.
Those are the moments that life is made of, the moments when we are made and unmade: the times when no one can shelter us or protect us, the times when we cannot hide behind our opinions and presuppositions. In these moments we see ourselves as we are: merely human.
Yes, it is rather anti-climactic really. I found that I was neither good nor bad; no hero or villain resided in me, but rather the potential for all things good and evil.
I found that my fears were that I was unlovable, unforgivable and unwanted, and the only person who felt that way was myself. I would not love myself. I could not forgive myself and I did not want myself around.
And it wasn’t until I found the strength in myself to do these things that I was able to feel happy, truly happy, for the first time that I can remember.
I don’t expect anyone to understand. I don’t even really understand it all myself. Things are just changing so fast, life is morphing, growing, moving on.
I’m not saying I’ve discovered myself yet. In fact, all that has happened is that I have been delivered to a new road that I must travel. I’ve merely discovered a place to start, a moment in time if you will.
For you see, time is not just a place, a thing or a measurement, it’s me, and I’ve got to do all I can with the ME I have left.

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