Wow... it's been one amazing year. It's hard to believe that 2005 has almost closed the door on us... but all great things ... strike that ... all things must come to an end. I'm actually quite happy to see this one leave. Entering the New Year is supposed to be a year about transition ... taking out the stuff that made it shitty ... and replacing it with stuff to make us happy. I guess in some ways my 2005 resolutions were accomplished. I definitely know more about who I am as a person. I've learned a lot of very important life lessons along the way. I don't mean to look back on the year with such remorse, it's just been one full of a lot of pain. I fell in love twice. The first time was actually at the end of 2004. Love has always been the most ultimate goal in my life ... I don't even really know how to descibe the power that it obtains with me. I guess sometimes I desire it so greatly that I lose site of the bigger pictures ... but I'm only human. I don't truly regret falling in love - actually I don't regret it at all. It's just that when you lose that person you feel as though you lose a piece of yourself at the same time. It's something that can't ever be reclaimed again - once its gone - it's really gone. With David metaphorically I lost innocents along with my heart for the first true time. I lost what the power of love holds ... I became distant and even more withdrawn than before. Over the summer I managed to regain some of that. But it's amazing how a love that you put your entire self into because you believe in it to that degree ... how it can just die. It's like a fire that you want to keep burning to keep you warm ... but that damn breeze won't go away. And once the fire is out ... the heat is still there, but the fire is harder to start ... and if you do ever manage to restart it ... it never burns the same anyway. I'm kinda thankful ... despite repeated attempts ... that the fire never did restart. I think that would have been an even bigger mistake. I was so rooted in the excitement of this new thing that I had found that it's composition didn't really matter to me. It's substance was lost in a sea of self-denial really. My second love was short lived and never really developed. I feel it could have, had its situations been different. I was pretty hurt at first when it ended. It's amazing how a month can make you feel so rooted into something. I know that I have a problem with attaching myself too quickly - I want to be in love. I guess I just saw such a potential in this relationship that it hurt me to see it not have the chance to become something. It's reason for failure seems to be rooted in the theory of time and place - accordingly everything has a time and a place - and this just wasn't ours. But this burdons one with the question what if it had been a different time? Would the love of my life have been this opportunity? Is this a lost opportunity? What did I gain? What did I lose? What did I learn? I guess all of those things are still yet to be answered ... and maybe they wont be. In some ways I feel denied a sense of closure and understanding - but then according to, "Speaking of relationships, I tried to pursue one of my own.. I'm not going to go into details, but the timing just wasn't right... this person got hurt in the process - which made me feel really bad... but, you can't go through life making everyone happy... and you just have to keep moving... you can't let things like this hold you up...." I don't know if I should be hurt by that or just take it for it's source. I mean, if you truly care about someone the way implied ... it does matter. There is the understanding that things sometimes just don't work ... I totally understand that ... this summer was a representation of that on many levels for me. I guess some of my problem is that I have an idealization of what love is ... actually I can quote my favorite passave from the Bible for this one ... it says it much more poetically than I could ever dream of. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in eveil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears." (1 Corinthians 13) Doesn't that say it all??? I suppose that if I ever find anyone who believes in this passage as strongly as do I, I will have found my perfect match. Love is going to be faced with problems. It's going to be difficult just as life is. But it can supply you with the most meaningful existance of all. Love makes everything else foreground!