2008: in reverie

i started this post earlier today. i sat down and i started to dissect the goals i had set for the new year at the end of 2007. as i worked my way through the list, i grew tired of tearing myself apart, denying my aspirations and admitting defeats that i do not necessarily count as losses.
at this time last year, i was a disillusioned young man, living my life inside the deafening blackness of carefully aligned blinders.
at this time last year i was preparing to get out of town with the nearest sunset and bring my weary bones back to the city of refuge. i was packed and preparing to head south, back to the supposed safety and security of a place i still oft refer to as home.
i had limped through my first semester of community college, hoping that my poor study habits and devastating personal flaws would not follow me back to where they originally formed. i was not looking forward to the start of the semester, i was more locked in on the nights i would spend surrounded by good conversation and japanese stick incense, passing bottles as the time slipped through space.
i was out to prove my hard headedness. i was a boy parading as a dashing gentleman, too ready to get out and show everyone that the real world was a place of easy ladies and hard drinking. i was a rebel with self-destruction on my mind, someone with very little to lose, and a willingness to make a fall from grace.
i was close minded and quick to fight, no desire to pull punches or listen to reason. i had the world in front of me, and i was willing to run through the gates of hell to get what i wanted. in those days i was not a braver man, simply more head strong.
i thought that it was all so easy. i watched it all come to me before i could simply walk past, a hurried soul into the night, that's what i should have been. i wanted to find myself, and see what i was made of.
no influences were going to hold my head, no way, no how. i was ignorant to the simple truths of the world, determined to cut my own path next to the superhighway of youth. it turned out to be a harder road then i ever imagined.
the year melted along with the vanilla candles on the broken glass coffee table in the living room of that plain white house. a slide began, one only a colossally blind man would not have seen descending on his own shoulders. now, as i reflect on where i have been and where i am going, i can't help but smile inwardly, thinking about the days i have spent and the nights i have survived.
through everything, i learned some hard truths, and more importantly, i gained some experiences that will never leave me. the following will be my year in review i suppose. i will leave out the gory details, the tales of treachery, the days that felt hopeless, they were there, but they are past. dark things sliding about in the waters just below my stare that need not be disturbed, no, not now.
i saw poverty. in the purest, most unbridled agony and glory, i have now slept in the gutter. i have seen fly covered walls compose my living room, the heat of summer pouring through open windows into powerless, dimly lit rooms. i have witnessed the empty satisfaction of days without nutrition, a dead, warm refrigerator holding nothing but a large glass jar of pickle juice, alongside a six pack of milwaukee's best. i will never forgot showers in those times, no money for the gas bill leading to the coldest, most awakening showers you could ever hope to miss.
i have watched young men throw away their dreams and not flinch. i saw it everyday then. days spent making wishes with no hope of action, all of us stuck in our own habits and happenstance.
i watched as boys i had grown up with saw the crushing judgements of the american legal system. i saw hope crushed with the drop and silence of a gavel. i never dreamed of seeing these things transpire, they just found their way to my door.
i also saw my personal limitations tested. i have weathered storms i never thought i would survive, i have triumphed over enemies far greater than i had ever dreamed up as a child. when you go looking for yourself, i suppose you can not help but to find your demons. i have stared mine in the face, considered spitting in their faces, and then have had the common decency to simply walk away. i never imagined that there were such dark things in the world as i have found in the last year.
i saw a broken man drink himself into shame and oblivion. i saw him find his daughter and lose her again. i watched as he picked himself up from the gutter and put his life together. i witnessed a man get clean, find love, and put a family back together. i saw the miracle of second chances.
i saw young men struggle to see past their noses in order to believe in any type of future existed outside of an oceanic living room. our dreams were dreary then. hopes of reliving the past and conquering the obstacles you have already failed can tear at ones stamina and ability to believe in anything.
more importantly, i saw myself leave boy hood behind and realize what it takes to be a man. i saw myself open up, grow comfortable in any situation because i was finally comfortable in my own skin. i am now able to see the world in a more pure light, in a more hopeful and broad spectrum.
i am able to trust fully for the first time in my life. i have seen that the heart of life is in fact good, and there will always be shepards to walk us through the darkest of nights. it is nearly impossible to be alone in this world, and i have tasted the desperation of that emptiness. i know that i will never truly be alone ever again. i carry the souls, thoughts, and hopes of the others with me every day and night.
this year has been harsh yet forgiving. granting me a second chances at life, love and success, and i have been able to bask in each of these. this has been a year to remember, and one that lasted far longer than i ever imagined it would. there were years trapped in the early months, days so full of life and living that they expanded for weeks in their own rights. i look back and smile, for i know the darkest days are behind me, and my chin will never drag on the grindstone ever again. i have made it, and the sun is shining on my head as the year is quietly closing. a smile is on my face.