Making a Future From My Dead Roses

This will be my last post of 2006, and let me just say: there are not enough Band-Aids in the world to cover the wounds I've inflicted this year.

I thought, for the greater part of the last twelve months, that I'd been making great strides in perfecting my character. I thought all the changes I'd been making had been for the better, and that I was becoming more of an adult. This year has held so many changes, and so many good things, but the end has been shrouded with something I thought would help, but instead only hurts.

I make so many mistakes. It's not always easy to recognize them, or to hide them when I do, but the alternative is taking responsibility for them, which is too terrifying to attempt sometimes. The scariest experience of all is not knowing if or when you've made a mistake.

And, if we're honest with ourselves, there aren't any guaranteed second chances. They exist few and far between, and some people wait their whole lives for them to come around. And what of that? If they never appear, all you're left with is a few dead roses and a broken heart. Such is the fee for not knowing what you want in life.

When I look in the mirror, I see someone different from who I was last year. All I can ask for is an improvement from the past, and I think I see it. I just wish that improvement came with happiness, too.