I just wanna see some palm trees.

It gets hard
The memory's faded
Who gets what they say
It's likely they're just jealous and jaded

Have I ever changed in a year. I'm not finished changing, but the difference is pretty incredible. The difference is as big as the difference between the west coast and the east coast. My soul took a trip from Los Angeles to Boston. Oh my, oh my.

When I start to give it any thought at all, I have a very difficult time reconciling all the different "me"s that have existed. They are all so different, how can they possibly have been housed within the same body and same mind?

There was the 12-year-old me, hell-bent on marrying Joey McIntyre and wearing bright yellow jeans.

There was the 16-year-old me, with purple hair and oversized tees, never giving a thought to anything but the present moment.

There was the 21-year-old me, already resigned to old age and monotony.

There was the 24-year-old me, convinced music was the only thing worth living for.

And there is me, now. I have successfully incorporated all of these people into my being, and given them all a semi-defined path with something to look forward to indefinitely.

You were the only person that knew and understood all of these people. At least you claimed to. At least I felt like you did. Perhaps we were fooling ourselves all along. Perhaps we created a bond in our minds simply because we needed one in our hearts. I've been so mixed up and turned around in the last 12 months that I honestly can't tell anymore. Whether it was real or imagined, it is a feeling I well and truly miss.

I had a dream last night that we shed ourselves of our pretense and negativity and let us just be us again. It was blissful. I'll never be as articulate or unrestrained as you, regardless of how much I learned from you. This is the best I can do.

Wheelin' through an endless fog.

I spent my entire life having absolutely no drive and no goals. There were things that I thought I might like, but nothing ever stuck with me long enough to actually do anything about it. I very nearly set myself on a permanent track to mediocrity and unimportance. A life based around just skimming by. As long as I could pay the bills and buy a few CDs now and again, that's all I ever figured I'd need and it didn't much matter what I was actually doing with my life.

I think I knew things needed to change before I even knew it. When I turned 25, I started feeling unsettled and restless. Nothing I was doing seemed worthwhile and I started viewing everything as an opportunity for something else; something new. I made a few hasty decisions just in the spirit of change and unfortunately they led me down some really bad paths. I can't say this new path isn't rocky, but this time I truly feel like this is the journey I'm meant to take.

It was very much like the moment in The Neverending Story when Bastian realizes the story had actually been taking place and he had been a part of it from the beginning. I didn't believe it at first, convinced my gut feelings were just more uncertainty. After a few weeks of mulling it over and thinking about career paths and possibilities, I finally gave in to it. "History" I wrote in my college application statement, "had been with me all along."

I don't know exactly where this is all going to lead, and I haven't even really begun as yet. All I know is that it's time for me to hop on my luck dragon and see where he flies.