So far my time in Texas has been a season of reflecting on who I've been and what I've done with my twenties. Re-evaluating who I want to be and how I want to live. I'm a different person then when I left Vermont. By far.

I'm really struggling to embrace who I am and accept who I'm not. Trying to not let regret find its way into my mind, for things I wish I had done differently. But, my past is my past, it is what it is. Can't change it, or trade it for someone else's, and its brought me to this present I find myself in so just trying to learn something from it.

I used to have more hope, that one day, I would step over that magic horizon line of good things that existed off in the distance somewhere for me. They were always out of reach, but I believed they were there, for some other day.

I really believed that someday, my patterns of disappointments and pain and brokenness might be replaced with, oh I don't know, love, healing, or a sense of belonging, that something would happen that would make me say, its OK that I've been through all I have, because I'm happy NOW.

But, hope deferred makes the heart sick. That's a dangerous word to me now, hope. It makes me cringe and makes my heart hurt when I hear it. I've resigned to no expectations for life. Reality is, the only thing that's guaranteed to us all in life, is pain. Death, taxes, and pain. So I will do my best to wade through the rest of my time here, endure my share of life's disappointments and try my best not to be a catalyst for the pain in others lives.

Looking the past in the eye, really hurts. Looking for the courage to move forward through unanswered prayers, pain, disillusionment, and failure in a life that feels tragic, misunderstood, hopeless... that's really hard, but the word courage is less offensive to my senses right now than hope. Just have to have enough courage to take on one day at a time. Get up, go, come home, fall apart at the seams. Do it again.

The old Sharon might look at the new one with disapproval or even disgust at my pessimistic and cynical attitude, and I know a lot of people who would judge me. I gave up. Lame. I just reached this threshold I didn't foresee, I'm not as strong as I once may have thought. Apparently you just can't go forever on empty. Somewhere along the line, the car slows, and stops.

I know, at least, after reflection on the last several years, a lot more about who I don't want to be. Now if only I could figure out what's left in me that's good... since its kinda hard to see through the rage, bitterness, and tears.