“Don’t charge me any money to go back home, it’s familiar to me, I’ll go it alone” -  Circle of Sorrow.  Various Artists  (Link in Quote)

2008 was a time of great failure.  I became everything I never wanted to be.  Afraid, lost, and arrogent in the face of that fear.  I became a braggart and bitter when my fear stopped me doing what I wanted or needed, I’ve let people who tried to listen down, by taking their words and no action then demanding more words of comfort and I’m sorry for that and a whole lot more.  I hope everyone can forgive and forget anything that may have offended them, it was unintentional.

I have a lot to carry, and it’s not fair to share, to complain if I don’t do everything I can to prevent the things I ask for help with.  I must be prepared to carry more if I am to hope to lose somthing along the way.  I thought I was was doing well to regain some of my memories, but I allowed the holes to fill with the broken coping mechanics of people I never want to be.  What I’ve been told is I’d won’t be able to access happiness unless I allow myself to face pain.  I have to take the step and take that path alone.  Once I know my actions are pure, and I’ve honestly tried all I could, then I could happily ask for help again.  But I have to be honest.

People say a lot of people have no idea what they want to be like, where they want to go.  I have a hard time believing that.  I’ve always known where I wanted to go, when I was 6, before my mind added holes there were guest speakers in my school.  They were writers.  Some crappy childrens books, of course, with a very simplified example of what writing was, they asked us to use our imagination complete a scene and I was enthralled.  Imagination had not yet become an escape.  It was pure.  Now it’s a double edged sword.  Sometimes imagination is a joy, sometimes it is tainted, but writing… That was from before and I always thought I’d defend it, fiercly.

When I first started University, I fell in love with it again and there were other people who loved it in different ways.  I discovered one of my favourite writers and found a forum through which we got to know him and two others.  It was like lessons beyond anything my tutors were teaching, and I never trusted the tutors no matter how good they said I was because I wasn’t trying my hardest.  They loved my writing or I think they claimed to because I was lazy.  But one did tell me I was good and to work like a dog, but I now that I think about it, my emotions were or are not where they should be and that further caused insecurity.

Now, the last year, without the company of other people who loved writing, I allowed fear and doubt rule.  My self image distorted and still may be, it coloured everything I did, especially SL, it became a cycle of self pity, and I hope I can remedy that in 2009.  Second Life became more than I had intended it to be, and I stretched it thin and strained a lot.  To that end I will be on it less, but I hope when I am on, it’ll be because I have nothing else to do or I want to be on, because I have met some wonderful people who’ll never know how much I appreciate them.

If I were to have resolutions, it is to step up, learn to be sad so I can truly be happy, work until I am satisfied I did my best to not have another year like this or go down swinging.