opportunities

I got the rare opportunity this weekend to see myself through the eyes of my friends, through the lens of who I was years ago. Rarely do we get the chance to take stock of ourselves via other people eyes. I remember so clearly who I was in school, and one minute back on campus and I can feel that person start to bubble top the surface. She was young, and very naive, although she would have denied it at the time, thinking herself worldly and mature. I look at myself now, a little battle scarred, but wiser. I don't remember being afraid then, but I am now, sometimes. I fear what might be, I fear was was and has been. School was marked for me with long periods of abject silliness, and those memories still make me smile. Not to say there weren't some dark places along the way, but I had people around me that cared what happened to me. I never appreciated the value of those people until now. Some of them I still talk to, some have fallen by the wayside. When we left school we said we'd be friends forever, and that didn't happen with all of them. I miss those we have misplaced along the way. The ones that remain are all the more valuable because they remain, for now I see how fragile and fleeting we sometimes are in each others life. I would not have made it through some dark scary things without these people there. And yet, I like the person I am now, more than the girl there was, in some ways. I no longer care what the world thinks, and that girl cared too much. I know now what I can do, because I've done it, I am doing it. Those people are still by my side, still willing to listen, and because of that, because of them, I am still here. Only now I see them for the value they hold. I am starting to believe, I just might find my way through this morass, because of these people. In each of them is a peice of who I would like to be, who I hope to become, and I can take that with me now.