When a Door Closes

You know the cliche. We recite it to our loved ones when we're at a loss for comforting things to say. We know its true, but it rarely helps in the moment. In retrospect, though, we usually see when and how the window opened.

I am not wizened with age, by any means; however, I've experienced enough of the difficulties of life to have some perspective. When your life is metaphorically down in a hole, you don't just have to start over. You have to dig out of the hole, get back to ground zero, and then build from there. It took several years for me, but I learned to take the ups and downs into stride and not to over-exaggerate them.

From deep depression and anxiety, a desperately fruitless love life chasing after shallow boy after shallow boy, homelessness, and an inability to care for myself let alone any other living being, I've worked my way to here.

Here looks like this: A quiet peacefulness and contentment with everything in my life, a confidence in myself and my abilities, including the ability to acknowledge that I am a good and talented person, a deeper-than-words connection with the love of my life, three unconditionally loving animals to care for, and my two dream career paths opening up before me. Call me average, but I've never wanted anything more than to be content and happy and loved. I have family and friends who love me unconditionally and the ability to wake up every day and do what I love. Sometimes I forget that none of this was dropped in my lap, that I worked my ass off to get here. Sometimes I feel guilty for being so happy because people that I love are unhappy.

I believe that what you put out is what you get back. I believe that if you fight hard enough, long enough, and focus on the positive, good things will come to you. There will always be another battle, another new hard thing to overcome, but for now, at this point in my life, I am blissfully happy with the view from the hill I've gotten to the top of. I can't think of anything more, right at this moment, that I could possibly attain or wish for.