Day Three hundred and sixty four - Everything

So... was this everything? Like, everything, everything? No, not by a longshot, and it wasn't even a lot - but it was enough. I told all the stories that had to be told, and I omitted a number of other stories : there was the one story that I only told one single time in my entire life that I elected not to tell now, and nor shall I be telling it ever again. There were many, many stories I chose not to tell at all. Some out of respect for the parties involved, and others - on the opposite end of the spectrum - just weren't worth my time. It'd be a kindness to even consider them a footnote in the story of my life. What I wrote here about my life, was what mattered, or at least what mattered enough for me to commit it to the ether. And yet... that said... and with the benefit of hindsight that nigh on a year brings... would I do things differently, were I to begin anew today?

That's a tricky question. In truth, I myself don't really know the truly, one hundred percent, accurate answer to that question. There's a part of me that thinks - no regrets. Things are as they were meant to be. They unfolded the way the way they were always meant to come to pass. It's fate, written in the stars. But there's the part of me that rebels against such notions - and maybe because I think I am the one who decides my fate, but also because deep down I think that all things can ultimately always be improved, perfected, even if by the teensiest bit. 

Recently I wrote about how I wished I had been more kind to Sofia when I wrote about her part in my life; though I may claim that when I revisited those days, I invited pain and suffering back into my soul, and those feelings tinged my words somehow, that's no excuse. I failed when I wrote about her, but not only her. I have known for a long time that I wasn't often loved by someone in my life - and let's not confuse all the 'love' I was offered, when in fact it was not 'love' but rather passion and libido and loneliness speaking for whomever it was that proffered it to me. There were two, only two instances of love, both of them very intense, both of them very, very different. One, I can only remember now by the hurt that coloured it for half a decade, the other I will always carry within my heart. But them two, them two they cannot be denied. And I ought to have paid a more dignified tribute to them. This I regret, and I have somewhat atoned for the injustice I did to Sofia's, but I have not yet done the same for Silvia's. And maybe I should not thank her - maybe, in truth, I should apologise to her. But I've already done that; I've already written about my repentance for how I allowed our story to pan out. Theirs are stories that I will always cherish, but must remain firmly left behind. It's a strange dichotomy, this - feeling that I am at once immensely grateful for having been graced by the light of their loves once upon a time, and that I must at long last put that light behind me. If there's a lesson I ultimately learned this year, is that there's nothing wrong with carrying a love inside me, e'en if it means I must needs carry it for as long as I live - it's just the way the cards were dealt, and I can - always - choose to be destroyed by it, or be defined by it, or be uplifted by it. I know what I have chosen. I know where that choice will take me. It takes me... north. And I will arrive there with a smile on my face.