Year upon Year

I thank Father in Heaven for carrying me through this year…
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A year ago, I had finally seen that girl I loved.  It had been 16 months since I’d left her at the Incheon airport; and it had been 12 months since she declared me unfit to love.  I felt it was miraculous to see her again, and I felt I could finally move on, my “wait” having been completed.
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I said goodbye to 2007 with high hopes.  At that time, I worked at the airport.  The coming of that girl put a stop to that job, with its extreme schedule.
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Despite the very encouraging finish of that hard year (like 2006 before it), January of 2008 and afterwards was one of the low times in my life.  Rather than “move on”, I tried to be friends with her again since she was seeming friendly.  When I found that I was no priority of hers, it was like being rejected a second time.  Things deteriorated between us and my schooling started to founder.  By April, she had told me not to keep in touch.  She went home in summer.  I saw her again in fall and we talked once, briefly.  I tried waving and greeting for a while, but at last just stopped interacting, unwilling to ever risk a third rejection.  Now, at the end, we don’t even know each other.  Meanwhile, her social wheel has kept turning.
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In May, I went to BYU and got the idea to sign up for the summer Cantonese class.  I also visited an academic counselor, and decided to refocus my schooling and attempt to finish within the year.
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In August, my car died, and I forsook the driving life in the interest of saving for my potential travel.

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The year closed up a bit quicker since I was a little busier with school, and the holidays came without delay.
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Now another year is over.  For 2008, I had wanted to continue working and to travel.  I also wanted to “love better”, “not selfishly”… and to “love … as God loves”, and take more care of God’s children.
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Obviously, I did not completely meet those goals.  I stopped the airport job but continued the crossing guarding; without both jobs, I couldn’t have travelled anyway.  For girls, there was the distraction of Rekha Selvaratnam, who liked another guy instead of considering me.  Those dynamics helped me to fall out of touch with the Zambians, with whom she’d become connected… while Rekha and that boy split up some short months later.
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I think I partially treated people in general better… although the few noisies I scolded at school might not think so.  Around Thanksgiving, I started to regret my expectations of their maturitiy, and I apologised to one (Shelley Ramdeen), but couldn’t find the others in time to apologise (Xavier Misiego and……. Leandro Quatel).  I lost confidence with Namkyu and eventually almost all the Koreans there, viewing them as a vagrant views gluttons and spendthrifts.  They were so casual with that girl I couldn’t talk to anymore… I who was the tool in bringing her here… I who had loved her.  Truly, every time I noticed her even opening her mouth to others, I had less desire to open mine to them.
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Well, the year counter has ticked, and after looking back, it’s time to look ahead.

I’m really not sure if I’ll travel, as I thought…
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These days I’ve been deleting a lot of online contacts.  The person I mentioned talked to me the next day, and when I wouldn’t drop all my other conversations that happened to have begun just before, she made herself offended and vanished.  Well, I somehow thought she was real, although she showed all the right signs of fakeness… from the “broken” camera and microphone to the escape manoeuvre at the end…  Anyway, I have little patience online anymore, and I want to give it all up…
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But, tonight…
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Tonight is a night of forgiveness.  I cleared my block list.
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This year, I must strive to forgive all my enemies, great and small, near and far, old and new.

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This evening, Lucie treated Shane, Shanna, and me to ice cream at the Baskin Robbins down 23rd.  Later, I and my mother watched the movie Armageddon, then went up the road to the school parking lot look-out as small, scattered fireworks went off across the valley.
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It was a nice movie, if offensive.  And it reminded me…
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This year, I must be prepared…
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…to be a hero.
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May we all be prepared.
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-Steve