2011 is coming to an end. Put this as your status if you met someone amazing this year ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

2011 is coming to an end. Put this as your status if you met someone amazing this year ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ This was posted to my Facebook account today. It got me to deeply think about the past year and how I made it through it.

I had become a very different person from the one that I had set out to be. I forgot about all of my hopes and dreams. I let others decide what I was going to do, act, be, etc.. I lost my passion for life. I just merely existed.

As most people know, I have been to hell and back a few times over the past 10 years and especially the last year and a half. My world turned upside down and I didn't think that I had anything more to give. I was ready to run as far away from anyone and anything that I ever knew or worse. 

It was then that I realized that I did not remember who I was. I saw a stranger looking back at me. Empty eye's that had lost all recognition of joy and meaning. I had lost everyone, including myself. 

I wondered where did that smile that I once cherished go? Where did my magical world of words and rhyme drift off to? I used to have an imagination and now it seemed lost in my own faceless reflection. Writing, music and photography were my passions and then in the mirror I saw that they were gone, as well.

One night an acquaintance that I had met through work said something that really made me think. He said, "If you continue staring at 4 walls and don't get out and do something, You will die! Get your ass out of that house and join us!"

That acquaintance was Jedediah "Diamond" Aaker. Who is now one of my dearest friends. I told Jed some time later, unbeknownst to him, that he saved my life that night. I was in a real bad place and didn't think that I could pick up the pieces and move on. But, Jed knew different and he introduced me to one person after another, as well as, to new places and experiences. He helped me realize that I was not alone and that I was worth something. I believe that the diamond fits him well. His heart is a precious stone that is undervalued until it becomes polished and shines. 

The friends that I have had such a pleasure of meeting this year, have become like a family to me. They have been right by my side throughout my whole ordeal with my tumor. Showing me how perfect strangers can open their hearts and at times their wallets, to make sure that I made it. Making me realize that if a perfect stranger can open their heart to me, then there must be a me inside somewhere that was worth saving.

I have been and am still on a journey to find out who I am and if the amount of love that I have received this year from my friends is any indication of what the next year will bring, then bring it on 2012!! What do you have in store for me?