Sunday, January 04, 2004

Notwithstanding my rants here and the impassioned outbursts I make day to day, in all things I generally look for--and find--the positive.

But just because I don't articulate the negatives doesn't mean I don't see them. I know that the good comes with the bad just as well as anyone else.

Rather, any apparent single-mindedness is the result of a conscious (sometimes Herculean) effort to focus on what seems good.

Maybe this makes me a bit of a Pollyanna. It doesn't make me stupid, unrealistic, or--least of all--indiscriminate.

In this life, there is far too much to depress, to deaden the spirit. Highlighting the positive about any given thing does not blind me to (its) reality. It helps me hold fast to everything that I love in this world.

It helps me to survive.

2003 was not a very good year for me. It was a year of depression and despair (the most disheartening moments of said year I usually opted not to document in this blog)--a year of self-doubt.

But the simple pleasures--a good book or two or a movie, the promise of study, my balcony in the midst of erratic weather, the sounds outside my window, time spent with family and friends, those transitory moments with not-forgotten acquaintances--made the journey not only bearable, but worthwhile.

The good has helped to sustain me. It has helped me to endure long enough for me to learn that I am a hell of a lot stronger than I often credit myself as being. It has helped me to endure long enough to realize that yes, indeed, "this too shall pass."

The good has carried me forward so that here--on the other side of that black curtain--I can say that I do love life. Not in spite of its impermanence and frequent bitterness, but because of it. I'll still grieve for that which is lost, but I now truly believe that there is always something to be gained in the defeat--even if it is only the experience of losing.

A happy New Year full of simple pleasures to you all.

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