The Duality of Tears

May 22nd, 2009.  I sat at a bar with two good friends, drank a mixed drink, and watched the Kings Island fireworks.  They were the only people I saw for my birthday.  Inside of my soul was a terrible fear, a terrible sense of loss, for the person I had loved had gone away.  There was rot, there were lies, there was pain.  I ventured into the unknown leaning upon a shaken faith and wondering if my life would ever be put back together.  If I could ever smile ear to ear without simply putting it on, faking, worn like a mask to conceal the threshing pain inside.

May 22nd, 2010.  I sit in my room at 2:21 am with tears streaming down my face.  But they are not the tears I shed the year before.  I may sit on the same bed, in the same room by myself, but here my heart is not alone.  I am surrounded in a sea of friends, big and small, far and close, young and old; friends who have captured me in their web of undying support and trust.  Many have seen me through stages of self-destruction and borderline insanity.  And yet I am inundated with those who have stuck by my side through thick and thin.  They have listened to me lament, listened to me complain... and they have also sang with me, danced with me, drank with me, celebrated long into the night with me in the joys of life.

I simply cannot put into words the life that you have collectively breathed into me this past year.  I would spin endlessly upon the mill of notes trying to find words that might express what your presence alone has breathed into me.

Here, I am safe.  Here, I am home.  Here, I am no longer alone.

I wish nothing but clear skies and smiles for all of you.  Thank you for blessing me.