A Theme

I just finished watching a movie that I am a little ashamed to admit has inspired me in a strange way. Ah, maybe one day we will get around to that story, but somewhere in the middle of it I realized what is really driving me.

Hope.

The concept that no matter what, no matter how crappy things get, no matter how bleak life looks, no matter how strong the pain may be that things will get better.

It is something I have been thinking a lot about. What exactly is it that keeps me going? That inspires me. And it is this optimism and hope, that come from a place inside me that I may never understand and perhaps do not need to.

I feel like this year is about an education, and adventure, and occasionally about moving on with my life, but what it is really coming to be about more than anything is a chance to discover, understand, and create a sense of self, of who I am. And I think it is important to understand these foundational attributes.

I have focused a lot in my life on where I have come from, the people and the places that shaped my history, but I think that that is really only half of the equation, I believe that there are underlying principles on which we all stand, and that are in our core and for better or worse are with us on an almost permanent footing. I say almost because part of my outlook is that we all can change whatever we want if we want it enough.

This all may sound a bit naive, but I don't think it is. I think it is strangely aware. We are all capable of change, but we do not all desire it. And that is OK. One of my favorite things that I have discovered in the past three years in my travels is that we are all different but we are all OK.

I am really happy with the person I am discovering, and creating. Yes, I am sad and hurt sometimes. But do you know what? I am happy about that too. It means I feel, I am human, and I am alive. Hard feelings aren't bad, they are just hard. And as the winds of change blow across my path the hardness is blown away, and will return. And so it goes.

Life is pretty good when you think about it.

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all.

And so today I still have a dream.

-Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
"The Trumpet of Conscience"-