It's cold. Not the kind of cold that just makes you wish you had a winter jacket but the kind that bites right through your flesh and makes you feel like your toes are made of ice cubes. This is the time of year when I miss the city most, I think. The summers here are bearable, but the winters… I don't know. This place is beautiful, don't get me wrong, but it's not…me. In the last few years, things have changed; too much so. Maybe I'm just growing up, but it seems like lately, people have fucked up their own lives, and hurt everyone else in the process. No matter what you do, it has a consequence. Sometimes more than one: sometimes several thousand. How can you do something stupid without thinking how it will affect people? Things that have been happening around here have ripped this community to shreds. And things that haven't happened here, but other places instead have nearly ripped me to bits. Why can't people grow up? There's more to life than getting drunk every weekend. No matter what anyone's said about me so far, or what I've said to other people, I'm not mad at Jake for going to Iraq. Honestly, I'm not. I'm mad that he wasn't supposed to, but that wasn't his fault, so how can I be mad at him for it? The fact that he was shot? That wasn't his fault. It wasn't the fault of his fellow Marines. Sometimes, I blame the "other kid", the one with the gun, but then I think about it… he was only doing what Jake and his fellow Marines were doing: defending their respective countries, as well as their beliefs. Then I can't be so mad anymore. It makes me want to be proactive, and make sure that another family never has to go through what his mother, Miriam and Meg, his sister had to go through. Every day this weekend, I lit four candles, one for each member of that family, the fallen ones too, because I knew it would break my heart to call the house and hear the sobbing of the two who are left. Jake was fine after a few days in the hospital. Three days after he got home, he got sick again, an hour later, he was at NEMC with a fever of 106.1 degrees. Two hours later, the infection had attacked his entire body, and he died an hour after that. That hurt. When he left, I had a bad feeling about his tour, but I didn't know it would be the last time I saw him. The cold makes me think of him. This is the first year I won't lose him and Travis at the park on First Night and find them sleeping on park benches two hours later because none of us had cell phones. This is the first year I won't get a phone call at three o'clock in the morning on my birthday, and I'll never get another piggyback ride around the Haymarket from him. The memories make me laugh: the time he, Trav, Ryan, Leita, TJ and I walked to Thompson's Island and back… yes, we walked to the island, didn't swim. All the thousand's of Dunkie's runs we made, sometimes several times a day so I could get my fill of real coffee before I came back to this crazy place, trying to find a clean bathroom in Chinatown at 4 AM, being in Chinatown at 4 AM in general… and then I want to cry, because it will never happen again. Alright, maybe it will, but it will never be the same, because it will never be with him. And I hate that. I think I need to find some winter gloves.

So I've been in this mood for the last few days, and therefore, this is isn't going to be very eloquent... but I've just been thinking, and I feel like if I don't get this all out somehow, then... well, I don't know what will happen, but I have this reoccurring feeling that it won't be good. I've been thinking a lot lately about how much things change, and how sometimes, just a little change can be amazing for the palate. I honestly used to think my life was over. I had resigned myself to settling for nothing, practically... my dream was to be able to pay my rent from month to month and have two kids right out of school, if I even finished, that is, a boy and a girl-- well, you get the picture. I was ready to settle for a lower-middle class lifestyle, and a job to fit that. Waitressing? Sure. Honestly, I wasn't so sure I'd even make it to twenty-one. And then I lost something; two of my most trusted friends in the world. For awhile, I was inconsolable, and everything I did reflected that. After awhile, I got scared. Seeing my older friends living the "dream" I had carved out for myself was not the bed of flowers I'd imagined it being. In reality, the world can be a dirty, nasty place, and the majority of the people I had idolized, I soon lost all respect for. Shortly thereafter, I cleaned up my act--a lot. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, by far, but I have actual dreams and goals now. I want to be a Homeland Security/Emergency Management major and buy a Brownstown in Beacon Hill in Boston and have a kitchen/dining room on the entire top floor, overlooking the beautiful skyline. And you know what? It will be worth carrying those sixteen bags of groceries up those three flights of stairs every two weeks, just to have that view. It feels amazing to actually have aspirations of doing something remarkable, and I'm so glad I got myself to where I am today. At this point, I have values, and I'm not going to sacrifice them for anyone, or let anyone stand in my way. If I say I'll do something, I won't let you down. I rarely flake out on plans, feel like a jerk when I do, and hate it when people let me down last minute. That's how much I've grown up. So for all of yous who said I'd never amount to anything; here I am, strong and ready to fight for my beliefs. You cannot change me, and you cannot bring me down. I will take you all by shock, because I am tough yet newly purified, and I'm not letting you shape my life into a cookie-cutter to fit your world anymore. I will not be stepped upon again. For all of you who never believed in me, here I am. Take me or leave me.