The Road

I'm very much a people person. I spend every day introducing myself to new people, interacting and communicating with them on a professional level while I work and a personal level at play. I enjoy learning about people and above all, I enjoy the daily reminder that although we lead different lives, have different goals and dreams, we are all connected through our relationships with those that share our lives.

The better I get to know someone, the more I value their opinion and advice. The more their life impacts mine, the more I want to share my life with them as well. I have very few "friends", but those that I do have share a large portion of my heart and stay in my thoughts often. I rely on them and hope they know they can rely on me as well.

...But with girls, I've always noticed that at one time or another, there is or there will come a time when one of us, perhaps both of us, will come to the realization that if we are such great friends, why couldn't it be possible to have something beyond friendship? Why wouldn't it be better? If you care about one another, like one another through all the flaws and imperfections, strengths and qualities that you have come to discover, couldn't it be...more? Sometimes you start down the road of friendship and are happy to remain. Sometimes you want that road to diverge to something beyond, and sometimes you find yourself wanting to start at the fork and never look back...but I've come to realize that there aren't two roads...

The Road. We all start at the beginning, together, but throughout each journey, we often find one person walking a little faster, wishing the other would hurry to catch up, often wanting to drag them along even if they are content with the distance they've come so far. Sometimes I see the end in sight and the other person doesn't even know there is an end, and sometimes the opposite. Sometimes the only way to remain together is to be content in where we are, even if it's not the end, and sometimes that is not enough - the pain too great, the risk unworthy of the reward, so we lose our way.

...Sometimes you meet someone who you can picture with you at the end, unsure if it is a vision of the future or just a mirage barely visible from the corner of your eye, but whether a dream or reality, you find that however fast you might have to run, however slow you might need to walk, perhaps even stopping to enjoy the landscape of the moment, you are content with that...not because you can see the end in sight, but regardless of the ending, you don't want to take a step ahead or behind that person, only beside them. fyh

Courage

Mark Twain said that "Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear." I've always felt I had some. Maybe not in surplus, or a large abundance, but an adequate amount - enough to get me by. It's hard to be brave all the time. It's hard to show courage in the face of anything and everything. Sometimes...fear just gets the best of us.

Fear doesn't have to be debilitating or insurmountable, but often times it is just below the surface waiting for a chance to creep up on you. For me at least, there is always a small reminder of it in the back of my mind. Most of the time, it doesn't take any sort of conscious effort, bravery or courage to invisibly carry it around inside. My everyday life, family, and friends help me cope with it and move forward. But sometimes, it *does* creep up on me, and *sometimes*, it does cause me pain and sadness, but I think that's just the way of it - I think if there was a way to permanently remove fear from our lives...we'd be different. I think fear is an inherent human emotion that is part of what makes us...us - and without it, we'd be incomplete.

I say that, and yet I'm scared, and I don't wish to be. I wish it'd just go away, but I try to find the courage to hold it at bay and hold myself together - it isn't always easy, and at times, I can't. I used to think that "Courage" was putting on a brave face and showing others that everything is fine, to not worry and smile and laugh, all the while shaking and trembling deep inside...but courage is definitely not that. I need to gather myself, not only to be okay in the face of others, but to be okay within myself, to come to terms with my fears and my worries and realize that as afraid and uneasy as I may be, I need to be able to make peace with them...that's the Courage I am looking for, and that's the Courage I'm hoping to find.