Sometimes, our past gives us insight and reason. Other times it does not. Sometimes our choices help us grow. Other times, they reduce us. What confuses me is when a choice can both helps us grow and reduce us at the same time. Within the past five months, I feel as if I have aged 10 years. I no longer view my world through the same eyes. I've grown into a strange sort of seriousness that I can't explain. It seems as if I must find reason for every single little thing and I refuse to believe this is wrong. At times it makes me unhappy, but it is still a need I must attend to. On the positive side, I now look to my future not with fear, but with the greatest of hope and excitement because I look forward to all of the lessons I have yet to learn. I realize some of them will be hard and painful, but I have every confidence in myself to be able to deal with absolutely anything. This is how I've grown. This is how strong I know I am, even if I don't always feel that strength. I've realized some things and these things are so intense that I'm a little scared to gaze at them; it's kind of like looking at the Sun . . . even though I can't fix my eyes directly on it, I am always aware of its presence, even when all is dark and proof of it's existence is merely through the softest moonlight. This what my experiences this year have done for me. Perhaps for me, this is the Year of the Sun... absorb.