G2 - 2008
You look back over a year and generally see the bad, the indifferent and, sometimes, the good. Everyone always remembers a year for the bad, for some this is due to profound reasons on which no one should comment, question or have opinion on. Realistically, 2008 has held 6.5 billion separate years, each one as unique and personal to it's owner as the next. Life, death, love, hate, boredom, excitement, regret and indifference has marked each of all these years in each owner's own way.
To think of your friends and family, see the trials and successes they have walked through, to have survived another with the pressures we each face is reason to celebrate. We all harbor events and decisions we wish we could revisit and try again, but in all honestly, even if we really don't like the face we see in the mirror each morning, these personal years create the individual, and that individual will continue to make good, poor and ultimately stupid choices again in the year that's almost upon us. We can each fix the past in our own ways, we do this by living our lives to the best of our ability. The choices we make may turn out to hold no advancement over what had been before, but herein lies the only choice we can truly make, do we live in the past and wallow over the "mistakes" we've made or do we look at what we have, may it be little or allot, embrace the hope that tomorrow brings and put one foot in front of the other and move forward. It has taken me a year now to put to bed my mistakes from the last, does that mean they have stopped haunting my dreams or attacking me when I'm feeling low or lonely, no chance. What it has done is allowed me to each morning, look into those eyes in the mirror and see the choices I've made as the person I now am, for good, bad or indifferent. My choice is what do I do next? In that question I see hope. I will screw up again, I will hurt the ones I love and I will also make the "right" call, I will bring happiness to those I love and I will move forward. You can't change the last second of your life any more than you can the last 29 years.
Everyone wonders over mistakes or things they wish they could do different. For me I wake up almost every morning without my Daughter within 10 miles of me. That is due to choices I have made and cannot change, but by moving forward, I can make sure my mistakes, choices and small victories will be available to my Princess, so when her years begin to mount and her decisions begin to weigh on her, she can have the wealth of my missteps, stumbles, cock-ups and small victories to bolster her choices. But the best advice I will give her is that no matter what she chooses, the paths she chooses she will always have me, my love and unending support to make sure she sees each new second as an opportunity, not a burden and is never afraid to take the next step forward. The father of the prodigal son, despite whatever his son got up to, the "mistakes" he made, the turns in the road he choose, his father still looked down the road for his son every day and when he saw him "from a long way off", ran and embraced his son and helped him to take his next step forward.
In those eyes in the mirror I look down the road to see what is a long way off, I see the path behind me and I see the next step forward. That step is all that matters, for me, my girl and for whatever is still a long way off. We never take that step alone, but we ourselves our responsible for making it. Standing still achieves nothing, may your next step always lead to happiness and another forward pace towards the light at the end of the tunnel.
I send my love to all my family and friends, may 2009 be whatever you hope it to be.
Matt.
