"Living on a Prayer"

"We've gotta hold on, ready or not,
You live for the fight when it's all that you've got."

On New Year's day, just after the we'd said good-bye to 2007, I couldn't help but feel like 2008 felt just like the last year (which isn't the greatest feeling...). I was very wrong to think that '08 would be similar to '07.

2007 wasn't exactly my best year, I'll admit. It seems as though everything from the past tw0 years has been slowly but surely spiraling down and I'm finding it difficult to keep my head over water. Just as 2006 was a major year for me learning and developing my own ideas about life, the universe, and everything in it, 2007 forced me to place myself under the microscope; learning more about who was and gaining a deeper self-awareness and applying it to my awareness of my surroundings. One major aspect of learning about myself was learning where I fit in my world and, especially in the latter quarter of the year, it has been taking a major negaive toll on me: Projects went unfinished, social life began to deteriorate, my creative flame grew (and continues to grow) ever dimmer.
But perhaps the most stark impact last year had on me was my health. Twice during the year my health "sank to a personal low". In September, I began my third bout and have been dealing with it ever since. It's the worst case I've ever had before and it's really got me worried (and i don't worry about myself very often). There are a ton of things contributing to my lack of good health and it would take a long time to go through them all (mostly because I can be rather long-winded). Perhaps, I will cover them in future posts.
Maybe the reason the new year felt so similar before was because I hadn't fully gotten into it yet and, quite frankly, I think I should have stayed in 2007. Within 6 days, I was promoted to assistant manager, which heaped on a lot more stress, lost a lot of personal belongings, and found myself caught in the middle of one of the biggest family feuds in my experience. So far, none of these have helped my health. Now, I may not be a soothsayer on anything, but I can tell that some serious matters are going to come to a head this year.

I'm not a praying person. The last time I said a prayer was Tuesday, September 19th, 2006. But last night was probably the closest I've been to praying since. I don't know who I was praying to. Maybe I was just talking to myself or maybe the furniture or just to who or whatever would listen. Maybe I was praying to God. As I lay in my room that night, eyes puffy from no longer being able to dam the salty sea it contained, I pleaded to the darkness: "I don't want to die... But I don't want to live this way. Please, let me get through this."
That was last night. I'm still here. So far, so good, I suppose.