I started the New Year off right by taking some time to reevaluate and assess where I am in life and where I want to be. I’ve always felt it was a blessing to know what I want and to have the nerve to have unwavering faith that I will achieve it. My parents, in all their weird quirkiness gave me some uncommon gifts and I can’t express how thankful I am. I wouldn’t say I’m extremely close to them and there are times when I feel a little left out, but that too is a blessing. Sometimes you need to feel a little left out to realize that all you really need to survive is yourself. We create our lives. Not the government or our loved ones or anything other than ourselves.

Over the past few days I’ve spent time going over and over the same scenes. Darkness craves light and light craves darkness. There is a healthy balance between the two that produces beauty. That’s the spot I’m after. That mid point where everything connects and the reader is not driven off by bitterness or drowned in sweetness. I wish I had a few more days or weeks to sit here and go through everything a few more times, to refine it to a sharp, precise point. Instead I have about 27 more hours left before I go back to work. So today needs to count.

Last night my Facebook newsfeed was inundated with “Go Blue” “Yippy Michigan” and a bunch of other crap regarding the University of Michigan Wolverines. I don’t get angry often but I was pretty darn peeved at this occurrence. Dear Michiganders, I just read that the city of Detroit is going to go to virtual police precincts, residents of the city are fighting to stop the closure of several libraries and please don’t forget that the body count for 2012 has already started adding up!! I mean seriously, what is happening? Did you miss that? I know Facebook is not some great place of action and most of us spend hours playing games or complaining about our day but enlightening others of the situations around them is important. Meanwhile, I have been reading through The Detroit News with shock and disbelief. Maybe it’s because I was born in Detroit that I care more about it than many of the folks who flank the city and have never actually lived within it’s limits. However, rest assured that the demise of the main city in your state spells the end of everything. Pay attention people! Michigan is imploding! There is this funny either-or dichotomy in Michigan. People who don’t live in Detroit are split into two camps. The delusional who believe that the city is “eclectic” and ripe for artists…liberals who think the collapse of the town is directly related to the oppression of government (although, upon sensible analysis it is clear that the extreme left bares responsibility for Detroit’s plight, if we are looking for a political root) and those who hate the place and think it an extension of Hades. In the midst of a warzone there are sparkles of hope, shining lights of promise and people who don’t feel the brunt of their existence. Others never get a chance to stop remembering that they live in such an environment. Still others, like myself, get to experience the gamut of living in such a region. I think it is best to know both sides of the story.

Retracing the past is painful (even if the past is that of my heroine) but just because something hurts doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be done. Here is something painful and true. Between Christmas Eve and February 25th five, possibly more, of my dead cousins, aunts and uncles birthdays will arrive. One of my two surviving aunts, from my mother’s six siblings, will post pictures of our dead on Facebook to remind us. As we enter March, we will move into another string of birthdays of dead relatives and I will remember to be thankful that something beyond myself has kept me here. In Lives Lived, there is a reason why Gabrielle survives while so many others perish. What does she have that others don't? How and why does she escape?

Here’s something I’ve come to realize. It’s not a great awakening kind of thought but it is something we don’t allow ourselves to admit. Many people have no idea how to be happy and another large camp of people, are too afraid to be happy. What would it be to wake up smiling and believing that you could accomplish whatever you set out to do? What would it mean to wake up next to someone you can truly be happy with? Someone you don’t spend half your life complaining about? Imagine being brave enough to tell the people you love that you aren’t going to stand for them treating you in a way you don’t want to be treated. Think about what life would be like if we were all that brave? What if you woke up and you refused to be unhappy? Consider the ramifications. What if you did that thing no one believed you could do? It only takes one time for things to be different.

Yesterday I was talking with a friend back in Michigan and I found myself in tears. He’s someone I’ve watched remain the same for over a decade. He’s been continuously unhappy for quite a while. I asked him, as I do everyone in my life that has been stuck in a rut, what the plan for 2012? I was totally surprised that he not only has a plan, but that the plan is already in motion. He was positive and happy and wishing me well, something he rarely does because when you are so sad, you can’t even consider the happiness of others. This is his one time that things are going to be different simply because he’s made it up in his mind that it’s going to be different. That’s all it takes. If you change your mind you can change your life. Today I want to carry on the momentum of my old friend whom I am so proud of. If you surround yourself with people who believe they can succeed, your chances of success drastically improve. Why? Well, because it they can, then you can. So, I'm off to my precious words. It's half past noon. Plenty of time left in the day and night for success to arrive.