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this isn't a story or a poem, but a small life story of why I thank heaven for 2007.
Writtne Laura V.C
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~True friends are the reason I survived. There is nothing like a true friend- a best friend. Don't let anyone tell you friendship is based on laughs and good times. It isn't, at least not true friendship. True friendship is every bad moment times ten when you want to walk away, but you don't. It's when patience is stretched and anger boils. It's when understanding is complex, yet you understand. You stay when you want to leave. It's being there in times when the last place you want to be is there. It's deciding that what's most important is friendship. Friends are a blessing not a right.
Each one of my true friends have been nothing, but loyal, and when they should've walked away, they refused. When I was tearing them apart with my conflicts, they were putting me back together. I don't think any of them realize how many times they have picked up the pieces of my life and ignored their own. No one in the whole world deserves the friends I have, not even me.
I love them like family, and want them to know that when they fall apart I will be there to pick up the pieces the way they have countlessly done for me. I will do it in fourty below weather while I freeze from head to foot because friendship is the key to survival in this world
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Thank Heaven for 2007
I don't know how inspired this piece of work is going to be, but it's a story, and a true one as a matter of fact. I'm betting that the people who read this will feel the same as me. 2006 was not a good year. In January of 2006 I decided not to make a resolution, but I had a goal. See, I think making a resolution at the beginning of the year only confirms that for the years prior to that, the same resolution had been made and had been abandoned only to lie the next year. So, instead I never made a resolution. I made a plan, and I'm good at plans. The plan worked well, however it ended in disaster. I know what you're thinking to yourself, get to the plan already. Okay-- the plan was to move out of my parent's house before the end of 2006. See, I'm twenty-six and I assumed I would be living on my own long before this. Anyway, I will continue with the plan. I made this goal with my sister (no names will be disclosed within this work) who was as anxious as me to get out. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents, and always will, but I needed my freedom. I needed my life to begin.
My life began four months into the year. My sister and I had found the perfect apartment. It was safe, comfortable, and spatious, and perfect for two people. I loved it upon first sight of it. What I was soon to discover was that my sister was seeing someone. This is fine, since she hadn't been with someone in awhile, however this someone was older then her by a considerable amount. He lived barely five minutes away, and all of a sudden I was living on my own which, wasn't bad. I learned a lot of things like cooking, and sleeping in a dark apartment while my neighbour above me gave the impression from all the noise he made that he was murdering someone and trying to hide the body. My imagination runs wild sometimes especially in a dark apartment. (A piece of advice for new apartment dwellers: if you happen to have an active imagination like me in the middle of the night. Play a sitcom. You will feel a lot better. I chose "Friends" and I was asleep before the theme song ended.)
Anyway, for eight months I had the apartment and for nearly six of them I was alone. 2006 was about to get worse when I recieved the news that my sister was moving in with her boyfriend. The initial date was May. On the other side of my life, my parents were dealing with problems that could only be described as catastrophic. There was a threat to their home which sent them to my apartment. I was glad to have them, but depression had set in by this time. I was working eight hour days, five days a week and on weekends I ran errands with my dad. I was exhausted, sad, and depressed. 2006 dropped yet another bomb.
My sister and her boyfriend were taking over my apartment. I pretended that I was happy since I knew that I would have to move back home in May anyway, this only made it easier. But my apartment was my home and I had to abandon it. I had to. I couldn't possibly pay for it, and everyday after I had been told I would lose it, I walked by the door with a heavy heart. My life was supposed to begin there. That's what I had planned. It felt as though my life was ending and each day that passed was worse then the last. I packed my things, watching as every corner, every cupboard, every room was cleaned of my things.
There's something about moving out that changes you. You step over the threshold and glance at what had once belonged to someone else, it's as if you can feel them there, all their memories, all thier fights and all their good times. I found out that a mother and her young daughter lived in my place before I did.
I came in, went to the window, overlooking the courtyard and sighed. It was everything I had ever wanted. I made it my home with my things, and my pictures. I felt the ties break between me and my parents for the first time. I felt my life beginning, and just as suddenly it was over. I mourned for that part of my independence I would have to gain back again.
Once I left the apartment, and went up to my old room in my parent's house I broke down, remembering how I had left this behind. 2006 felt like the end, adding only insult to injury everytime I turned around. I wanted to skip past the rest of the year, and begin new in 2007.
It is now 2007 and I have done what I said I would do. I started new. I won't make new years resolutions nor will I make a plan, because plans change. I have set out to make this the best year possible: I am currently working full time. I am also starting my second year of University in September of this year. I don't expect any sort of sympathy, because this is just a story I wanted to share with those that felt their 2006 started and ended with heartbreak and the feeling of failure. I believe everything happens for a reason which is why I welcomed 2007 with open arms. Things will change, and everything will work out. It's the bad times that makes us all appreciate the good times. Goodbye with bliss to 2006, and thank heaven for 2007.
