it's up to me

We often count the days or hours in our lives.

We credit those who pass on by their accomplishments and talents. But do we stop to think of the courage it takes to walk the miles in the shoes of that person.

What their experiences have been, good and bad, and where their journey took them?

Each persons inner growth can not be measured by what is accomplished on the outside.

We walk miles and miles with our memories, the good are fun to live with, but what of the terrible events we carry to our journeys end.

They make us who we are in the end. They are often the clay we mold our life decisions by. And they take us down roads we would otherwise leave uncharted.

So where does that leave you and me?

I am left with a barrel of memories, good and bad.

I am left sifting through the remains of my childhood, deciding which memories to keep and which to leave at the site of destruction.

I am learning to choose what to keep and what to let go of.

This is what I have come to find.

As I pass my own mile 191, I slow down but I will not stop.

This is where I feel I am coming to the top of the hill, where if I endure I will see more clearly the road ahead.

I am going to make it. And I can tell you why.

Despair and depression have encompassed me. I will always have my days where darkness overcomes the light.

But I have learned that the sunset is a beautiful thing to see, but by experience the sunrise the following day is by far greater that any sunset.

A new dawn, a new day and it is up to me where I go.