28 September, 2003 - 9:55 a.m.

I can't believe that it was a year ago since I was in New York watching one of my oldest and dearest friends walk down the aisle. To sound all clichéd and old-person-like .. it seems like such a long time ago. But then, on the other hand, I can hardly believe that 12 months have passed me by.

I know it seems stupid .. this whole commenting on time thing. I mean, obviously it's always there. It's always moving forward. It's always just getting sucked away into this void where everything that happens to us disappears into obscurity except for the most memorable of memories. Or when we deem them important enough to keep a momento to look back upon. A small item that we stumble across in an old storage box .. a letter that has been folded and unfolded a million times. All these abstract, seemingly insignificant personal items that jog our memory, and stir a lazy finger through all those dusty, half-buried recollections. The auto-biographical cataloguing of the people .. the places .. the jokes that are shared long into the night after the raging winter fires, so carefully constructed in the hearth, fade away into glowing embers ..

Am I older? Yes. Am I wiser? Hardly. There's still such a lot of growing to do - both as a person emotionally, and sure as heck intellectually.

I just want to make sure that I don't end up falling too far behind in the lessons of life. As each day passes, and I find out that one of my friend's has done this, and that another one has accomplished that .. I get scared. I get scared that I'm not doing the same things. That I'm not learning how to cope with certain situations that will eventually take place. I'm scared that I'll never know as much as my parents.

Is there a formula for a Happy Life (tm)? Because if there is .. I'd sure like to find it one day.

In the meantime, I'd like to wish that dear, old friend of mine a very happy first year wedding anniversary, with hopefully many, many, many more to come *tight squeeze*