Is it just me, or are people hauling ass down the aisle in record numbers at the moment? In the past two months or so, 4 people I know have gotten married. All these weddings are stirring up some old and rather unattractive feelings in me for some reason. Don't get me wrong, far be it from me to begrudge them their happiness. Not at all. I really am very happy for each and every one of them. But at the same time, it reminds me of how everything I wanted went to someone else. Thinking back in time, a lot of these people have had it kind of crappy in the past while I have had it pretty good. Do you ever wonder if we're all on some kind of cosmic cycle? While I'm up, they're down... and vice versa. If that's the case then isn't it kind of wrong of me to want things to get better for me? Isn't that almost the same as hoping things get worse for everyone else? I think I'm on an opposite end of the cycle from the rest of the world. I can't think of a single person I know that isn't having some kind of miraculous life event right about now and is deleriously happy... except for me. If I were a good and ethical person, shouldn't I be wishing that things remained in the status quo for the greater good, and stop worrying about my own damn temporal happiness? Is anyone really that gracious though, aren't we all just selfish pigs when it gets right down to it? I'll be the first to admit that I am. And while everyone around me stomps around in their wading pool of happiness, I'm reminded only of everything I don't have in my life and every part of me is screaming for me to have some kind of emotion about that. But honestly, I'm afraid to because I don't want to know what it'd be.

Having said all that though...

I never seem to give a single thought to all of the things that I DO have in my life. It's so sick that I only seem to bother placing a value on the things I covet whilst entirely overlooking what I already possess. I have a home, I have faith, I have a family, I have a second family, I have friends, I have suffered no major pitfalls or tragedies in my life, I have the chance to get an education (albeit wasted), I have minimal obligations and maximal room to screw up. One of these days, some of those things are going to be gone from me and I'll never realize until then how much they were actually worth. And I'll never realize how much I owe some people until I no longer have a chance to tell them they're appreciated.

I'm beginning to sound like a Hallmark card.

I hate how depressing winters are, it always feels like I've been poisoned. From September through April, I'm in a holding pattern. Just waiting for the sun to come out, the icky snow to get off the streets and the urge to scream to get out of my body. I don't care if the summer is just as crappy. It's summer and therefore by definition will never be as crappy as winter. Things just don't bother me as much. Well that's not true. They bother me, but I just have a hearty cry about it and keep on trucking. They don't engulf me like they do in the wintertime. So one is inclined to ask oneself, what in the Sam Hill am I doing living in the coldest, darkest, creppiest place on earth? I'm equally baffled, really.