It's just been a strange sort of year. 

I've had to ask myself what matters more to me. It's not as easy as I thought, especially when both are important. Then I asked myself which would hurt more if gone, and I think the choice made itself. 

I've had to learn that you can't help people who won't help themselves. No matter what you do, sometimes you just have to watch people deteriorate by their own stubbornness or whatever-it-is. Maybe it's an instinct or secret desire for self-destruction; maybe it's the desire to live out a drama. I don't really know. 

I've learned I can't avoid pain, exactly, but I can choose how much I allow it to affect me. 

I went for painting classes, and didn't paint well but had a load of fun. 

I also learned a new sport. 

I still feel the sands of time trickling through my fingers. The constant loss of time makes me scared. But I do think it's alright, still, to use time luxuriously sometimes.  

"He was looking up at the river of stars, his breath smoking faintly silver."

The scent of a library, that dust-paper-wood shelves fragrance, is the scent of my childhood. Where books were my best friends. I couldn't weird them out when I said things off context, which I do often. Or offend them by being overly straightforward, which I probably have been since I was a kid. My best defence then was to keep my mouth shut. Now it's just the generally thicker skin I've developed. 

People want to live longer and better lives. That's very understandable. I do, too. 

I think it's also important to keep in mind what we're living longer for. What we're optimizing for. We don't know when our time will end, so together with trying to be healthy, exercise, eat your fruits n veg, sleep well - I guess it's important, too, to do the things you want to do. I often feel the clock ticking, feel the need to push a little bit harder. I don't know when my time will be cut short, so before it does - . 

---

There isn't time, I think, probably, to waste on politics that aren't worth it. 

And while Buddhism might say your enemy is your greatest teacher, I'd like to take the lesson without being affected by it. Yeah, I'll try and love my enemy, but it is possible to do that without giving a shit? 

I don't think so. But, ah well. 

I remembered standing in the snow talking to you about your future, and mine, but I forgot looking for the aurora with you. 

I don't know how I forgot. It was bloody cold outside and I didn't want to go out. But I did, I think. And it was dark outside, we needed to use our phones as torchlights, but it was hard because it was cold. And the snow was thick. And the sky was black with a few sprinkles of stars and no aurora. Even though we waited for some time and checked a few directions. No aurora. 

But it was dark and freezing and you were there and I thought it wasn't so bad, nothing could be too bad, if you were there. 

 

"...that there were forms of strength the desert had not taught him to recognize. That did not make them lesser. Only rarer. And perhaps rarer things were harder on those who had to guard them precisely because their survival seemed, at first glance, impossible." 

The biggest advantage I have ever had is loving books. 

I've had books since I could sit up without support. My earliest memory is staring at a poster with pictures and words under them, imagining that CAKE and BALL were real. I read enid blyton and charlotte's web and anne of green gables - thank you, grandparents. I grew older and read harry potter and LOTR - thank you, parents. 

Years passed and I read TKAM and Disgrace and Jane Austen - thank you, school. 

Books have always been my friends. More, they let me live a thousand lives within my own short timespan. 

When I read, I see the story in my mind. It's as if I'm standing there, in front of the characters, watching the smoke drift across the snow. I smell it. I feel it. The chill of winter brushes my ears, and the silence in the woods echoes in me. 

I grew older, and started reading nonfiction, learning other people's life lessons. Almost no magic, but a lot of mentoring.

I love books. They make me laugh out loud and often make me cry. Every great book I've had is a gift and I've countless ones.