Almost Goodbye in 2009!

It's almost here! 2009 is ALMOST done with...can hardly believe it...but I think I say that every year. A year seems like such a length of time, but when it's over with, it seems to have gone so fast.

Bringing on a New Year always seems exciting, unplanned and dotted with a little trepidation of what is unknown. However, looking back over the year I realize I reflect mostly on the people i know and love more so than the events that have taken place. It's probably because that is where I tend to place my value, I tend to measure a day or week by the people the Lord has placed in my life.

I realize people come and go, but they all have been in my life for a reason and a time. Some people I may not welcome with open arms but they teach me patience or perhaps refine my character or even better yet, display a reflection of my less than stellar traits.

Sweeter, are the friends and family that have intercepted life through its journey. I am forever grateful for my family, they are a steady foundation I build on every day and I am not sure what I would do without them.

Circumstances and the undulation of life itself often change who is woven into my life. There are friends that reside far away and it's unknown when or where I will ever see them again, but they know (or at least they better) the very special place they have formed in my heart. They had their time and place in my life and shaped and molded me in a way that they may never even know. Their season was sweet and though the sun as set on our time as friends who live together or see each other on a daily basis, they are just as important now as before.

People have entered my life throughout the past few years and even just this past year that find a way into my heart, affect my life and give me lessons to learn. Some, I have known for years, some for a few months and others I have yet to meet :) So, for me, it's a journey with those around me. Even now, there are some people I feel I have known for what seems like forever, but as relationships grow and change, it's as if I have rediscovered them in a way I did not know before. I have to ask myself how I missed that all before, because now that I know what I do, it seems to have enriched me further and I love them more for it.

So, I embrace the New Year as another journey and thankfully it's a journey with family and friends who will teach me, grow me, sharpen me and enrich me and I can only hope I do the same for them.

To top it off, as I was flipping through some creative writing pieces of a few writers, I saw this:

A season of friendship

owes no responsibility to time

A friend may be forever

but it's intimacy may only last for a summer

A friend's embrace

may last only to keep out a winter's chill

Their laughter may only quell

in springs unveiling moments

There is a time to hold on

There is a time to let go

A friends moment in life may

unravel for years

or

sweeten life for only a season

Neither is sweeter

neither is deeper

But each shines brighter

in its season of time

My time was then,

your time is now

hold dear my friend

if it's time to go

Hold tighter my friend

if our season is now

enjoy the journey :) See ya in the New Year!