"People say friends don't destroy one another.
What do they know about friends?"
Game shows Touch Our Lives, The Mountain Goats
2011 has been a mixture of love and hate. It's been terrible and wonderful in very different ways. While it has filled me with so much joy I could burst, it has also left me hollow in other parts of me, of wont. I don't quite know how to explain it. In the past year I have met my favorite authors---my role models---and yet I have also felt the smallest I ever have. I never knew that one person could make me feel so small and insignificant.
Looking back on it, I'm not sure what happened. I'm not sure whether I said something, or did something, or perhaps they had put on masks the entire friendship. Perhaps they had smiled and laughed and taken those disgustingly candid photos for my benefit.
Maybe they were just waiting for the right time to exchange me for someone else.
And in the end they did.
I've never felt so small before, so insignificant. At times I thought that I would just disappear into the woodwork and no one would care. Would they care? Would any of them even notice?
In 2011, I learned who I can depend on and who I can't.
I learned that sometimes you find your best friend had been there all along, while you went skipping after someone else.
I learned that not all great plans pan out, and that sometimes you have to improvise.
I learned that you find opportunity in places you never thought you'd look, but in hindsight you are glad you did.
I learned that tattoos are ideas brandished on your skin, and that when you commit to one you commit to it for life---more so than a marriage or a contract. It's a life goal, and it's a constant reminder.
I learned that not every person you meet on the road is nice, and even the ones you have known for years turn their backs on you.
I also learned that when you open your heart to someone, however easy it is, when they tear themselves away it's not as easy to sew back up. They leave in their wake a hollowness that no matter how you stuff it or sew it up, it always tends to come undone and bleed. You find yourself aching at the smallest thought, the tiniest sliver of a memory. And sometimes it lasts longer than tattoos.
In 2011, I didn't make a resolution. I just went into the year with high hopes, and I end up coming out of it beaten, battered, but still standing.
I have learned that I am stronger than I first realized, and that while I might not be bold and brash, I have the right amount of gumption I need to survive.
And, above all else, I learned that love covers a multitude of sins.
I'm not sure if I believe in God, but I do believe in something higher. I have a faith now, because I find comfort in the fact that someone is looking after me. Someone up there who takes my hand in the dark and guides me. I am not alone. I am never alone. And whether it be Allah or the Goddess or God or Zeus... whoever, I know that I'm not alone.
So for 2012, I won't make any resolutions again. Instead, I will make a dream list. I want to aspire to something, not check it off my list. And it's high time I do so.
2012
1. Publish a book.
2. Quit chocolate.
3. Send my family love as much as possible.
4. Work for a good cause.
5. Find my life ambition.
