Whatever happens, I've made a promise to my soul to bless the bad as well as the good. To see each experience - especially the negative ones - as golden opportunities to define who I am.
This year, my course is set and my sail is hoisted. I feel a wind at my back. It's time to sit back and see where this takes me.
As I end 2009 and begin 2010 with the loss of my best friend, it's important that I remember that promise to my self. Kuma's entrance into my life was just as important to my evolution as his departure was and will be in the coming years.
2009 was, in fact, quite enlightening for me. The first major event was my weekend at the Mankind Project. It was life changing for me. As I reported when I came back, I'm not at all ashamed to say that I came back from that experience a man. Someone who stood firmly on his own two feet and felt really comfortable in his own skin for the first time. I was completely ok being single if that were my destiny.
Before I could reach my next milestone (my motorcycle trip to Canada), my grandmother passed away. I miss her very much and her smile is permanently etched into my memory. Her passing came literally days before I was scheduled to depart to Canada (a trip I had been planning for over a year) so I was unable to attend the small family gathering in her honor. Instead, I chose to take one of her earrings with me in the breast pocket of my motorcycle suit, right next to my heart.
During that trip, I got to see my cousin Monique's brand new baby Dario. Seeing a newborn so soon after my grandmother's passing reminded me that life is cyclical. I also met the man who's books changed my life many years ago. It was also during this trip that Jesse and I decided to give things one more try. Not a bad series of developments for one three week trip.
My career has undergone some serious evolution as well. In 2009, I completed the transition I began in 2008 from Mac Systems Engineer to Filemaker Pro developer by quitting my job at Beezwax (just before my trip) and starting at Unified Compliance as the Database Architect when I returned. I have no regrets for these moves and am excited about what lies ahead.
The final five to six months of 2009 have been spent getting more involved with my job and closer to Jesse. The year finished with bitter sweetness. A fun time in San Francisco where Jesse and I made new friends and rekindled old ones followed by the loss of Kuma and a pretty crappy cold.
I refuse to let the tone of 2010 be set by these events, however. The paths we walk in our lives have uphill sections and downhill sections but they always lead forward. Forward is the direction I'll always yearn for and, true to my promise to myself a year ago, I bless the good and the bad as they are all opportunities to define myself, to grow, and to evolve. On this ship, I've gained a crew member and lost one. The struggles are part of the experience of life and I'm ready to continue to another year of successes and failures and of gains and losses.
Happy New Decade.
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