One year ago today …

… I started to chronicle my life at this site. The entry was called New Beginnings.

I’m not sure it was a new beginning. It was more like a fresh paragraph in an ongoing story. It’s taken me the better part of a year to realize that though.

I didn’t start over again with a clean slate. I brought the same baggage, the same mindsets, the same history with me that I’ve always carried. Want to know something? That really isn’t such a bad thing.

You can’t learn from mistakes if you shed them like snake skin every time you grow a little more. You can’t gaze at your past and take some pride in your accomplishments if you refuse to turn around because you’ll see the errors you’ve made. If you spend your life afraid of screwing up, you’ll never get a chance to really live.

What do I have now that I didn’t have when I made that first entry? I have a grey kitten that plays fetch and doesn’t understand she’s gotten too big to sit on my shoulder. I have a kitten that has taught two cats how to play again, and taught a human how to play fetch and understand Kittenese. I have a kitten that has given me stories to tell, and helped me prioritize what is important in life.

I have gained in possessions. I have real furniture, picked out by me. I have new dinnerware (thanks to the cats) for the first time in over twenty years, and I have found that there can be a lot of joy with small changes. I have a fantastic new digital camera, and with that I’ve acquired a love of sharing pictures of my life.

I have a new mistrust of the internet, tempered with the knowledge that some of my best friends talk with a keyboard and further tempered with the knowledge that there are idiots in every avenue of human discourse. The only difference with the internet is that human rudeness is displayed in a more permanent way, so that it can be saved, revisited, and stewed over. But then again, so are the human kindnesses. Everything is more intense on the net. The colors more intense, the fictions greater, the facts more definitive, the dramas larger than life.

I have a smattering of Latin under my belt now. I can code a little CSS, though I’m still more comfortable with HTML. I have discovered China Meiville and the “Evil Dead” movies, and decided I like one and not the other. I have revisited Tolkien and Clarke, and discovered that first loves are often lifelong.

I have lived with a man who loves me, and who has let me in to see things he’s never shown anyone else. I’m learning to do the same with him. I’ve learned that it’s OK to argue, because argument too is a form of communication. I’ve learned that it is not OK to fight, because fighting is not a form of communication.

And I’ve learned that there is nothing wrong with buying yourself flowers whenever you want them.