"Oh sure, there'll be bad times, but that'll wake you up to the good stuff you weren't paying attention to..."

I am going to be a little sentimental here for a minute... (bear with me.)

After another day of all the crap I deal with here, constantly poring over the same details I've gone over every day for the last few months, looking for some clue as to the piece of the puzzle that I haven't been seeing, I called Anthony. Tonight his cousin was going out downtown to celebrate her birthday. For reasons we won't get into, because they are really embarrassing for other parties, I was asked to come along. And my first instinct was to turn down the offer, because as we all know I can't afford to go and spend money on overpriced liquor at the restaurants and clubs downtown. But after a few minutes I reconsidered and decided to go. We went to a fabulous latin fusion restaurant called Carnivale. And the second I hit the door, I knew I was financially over my head for the night... But I ran with it. Two raspberry mojitos later, (which were INCREDIBLE... and purchased by Anthony, because he is a spectacular friend,) I had laughed, I met some new people, and of course I got to spend some time with one of my most favorite people in the whole world. (That's Anthony in case you haven't been paying attention.)

When we parted ways with the rest of the group Anthony and I went back up to his place, and despite the fact that he had to get up to work Friday, we sat in his kitchen and had cocktails. We talked. We laughed. I cried. We laughed some more. We told each other things that only the very best of friends should know about each other. We looked at OLD pictures of him, laughed some more, and at about 3 AM I told him that he needed to go to bed and that I had to go home. He stayed on his couch, I tickled his foot to make him get up to lock the door behind me as I left, and as we hugged before I walked out the door he blew a raspberry on my shoulder in retaliation for the foot thing.

And on my way home, I smiled the most genuine smile I've had in a long time because I realized that he is one of the most incredible parts of my life right now, and I had been so focused on the crappier parts of my life that I had totally neglected looking at the good stuff.

Yeah, sure I've got problems. And to a lot of people they would seem like BIG problems. Hell, on an individual level, they ARE BIG problems. There has been many a person who has had a situation far less dire than mine and ended up taking their lives because they couldn't find that light at the end of the tunnel. But I'm working hard to focus on that light. I'm trying desperately to keep that light burning brightly.

I know that I have some good things working for me. I have a family that loves me. I have incredible friends who would do anything for me. I have every advantage that comes with living in this country. I have my health. I have the INCREDIBLY ALL IMPORTANT, (AND HIGHLY UNDERRATED) sense of humor. I have have an obscene wealth of knowledge about some of the most random dumb stuff. And I know how to perfectly mix just about every drink known to man.

There is good stuff here.

And though it is easy to get bogged down in the nasty, crappy, ugly parts of life, I'm trying to worry about that less and focus on the good more.

I recently heard a cheesy story about people hiking on some mountain trail, and how one of the hikers kept focusing on the negative parts. The difficulty of the hike. The monotony in the surroundings. And the other hiker told him to just keep going. And when they got to the end of the trail, above the tree line they looked down at the forest. They saw the grandeur of the whole thing put together. They saw the whole forest. The beauty of the whole thing was so much greater than the sum of all the ugly monotonous parts. So I figure I'm just still down on the trail... And that the grander picture has yet to be revealed, but I'm trying to stay focused. Trying to make it to the end of that trail. To gain the reward of seeing it all make some kind of sense... and to really see the proverbial forest for the trees.

(And I know I am so cheese-tastic right now, so I'm gonna leave it at that.)