Inevitably, the older I get, the more complicated everything seems to become. Life's simple pleasures seem to slip away, constantly overshadowed by the much more complicated troubles that come with moving into the world of adults.

More and more, I find that I'm coming to value an adult who still retains an optimistic personality just as much as I value a child with unfailing innocence. Because it's sure as hell a lot harder to remain optimistic when life starts to throw you around, stick you in the washing machine for an extended tumble, and then put you in the dryer on what feels like the 'constant' cycle...i.e. it never seems to end.

Just keep going around and around and around...and if it's not one thing, then it's another.

That's how I've been feeling for a while now.

Like no matter what I do; no matter how much I take care of myself, there's always something waiting in the wings to present a whole new challenge. Or a bit of heartache or sadness.

And learning to cope with all of that is just as important, in my mind, as remaining committed to my program of recovery. Because it all adds up to one thing at the end of the day: handle it well and you'll be happy at the end of the day. Let it handle you and you'll be in serious trouble.

This weekend has been an odd one.

I went down to Eugene on Thursday to pack up the house I've lived in for the last three years, and move everything home once and for all. And oddly enough, I was fairly sad, almost in spite of myself, as I packed everything up and watched the furniture moving out of the house and into the truck. Because in spite of the bad memories I'll forever have attached to the place, there were one hell of a lot of good times too.

My college years were spent there; and there were as many nights of laughter with my girls around the t.v. as there were nights spent in bitterness or loneliness because of fighting or frustration.

Watching the coffee table head out the door, I remembered the poker tournament we played, where we had no chips, and so one of my roommates tried to create chips by grabbing beans, penne noodles, and rice to use as chips. And how the rice was the worst idea ever, because it kept disappearing...far too small to manage...and how once people started getting drunk enough, they all started eating their penne instead of playing it as chips. How my friend Steven took his first shot that night, and everyone laughed because he sipped it instead of just downing it like you're supposed to (not that I probably would have done any different since I didn't generally take shots either).

I watched them pack up the dining room table and thought of all the late-afternoon coffee-and-gossip sessions I had with my two roommates; two of my best friends. How we'd sit there with our favorite mugs and solve all the problems of the universe. (I can remember those mugs in my head...mine is red and says DIVA on the side...Kelsey's is white and says VIOLIN IS MY LIFE...and Valerie's is blue and says, simply, WHAT?)

And I remember packing up the pictures all around the house, and seeing images of Kelsey and I in Europe two summers ago, and realizing that even two years has changed us.

"My God...we look younger..." I remember saying it aloud, and Kelsey just laughed and agreed. Amazing what two years more of living and learning can do to a person. Because after that Europe trip, I'd start my struggle with addiction, and Kelsey would start on a string of bad hookups/breakups with less-than-savory men.

And yet we also marveled that we were still standing there together, and the friendship hadn't changed one bit. I still had my mug, she still had hers, and we still sat and talked for hours on either her bed or mine. And we still loved Lord of the Rings as much as ever too...agreeing that we will be Merry and Pippin together forever.

And then she headed home to start summer work (we only live about thirty minutes apart back home, so I'll still certainly be seeing her), and I was left to finish up with the movers, which I did all day yesterday, starting at 6am and ending at about 10 pm last night. We loaded up the truck with everything, and the house, just like that, was completely empty, and the last ties to my college life were cut.

It just feels strange to think about.

I honestly don't quite know how I feel about all of it.

But life is inevitably changing. Moving forward. As a friend once told me, as humans time is never on our side. We always want the days to speed up and get to the grand finale, but then when we get that finale, we spend our days praying and begging for more time. There's never enough hours in a day, days in a week, weeks in a month, or months in a year. It always comes and goes so damn fast...

...the fact that I've reached a point now where two years doesn't seem like much any more. I remember a time when I was a kid where two years was forever.

Do I want to change?

Maybe.

Maybe not.

But regardless...I will change. That's the one certainty in life. We're not meant to be stagnant. We're meant to grow and change.

And this was driven home more than ever before when I received a message on Friday night telling me that a good friend of mine, a soldier in Iraq, was stateside in a hospital because his hummer was blown up on the road. He suffered horrible nerve damage, his legs don't work properly (they don't know yet if the damage is permanent or not), he's lost half of his left bicep, and there's so much shrapnel in his body that he'll be having surgery for the next few weeks to get it all out. And he sent me a text message at one point, and all he said was: "I want to go home."

And it broke my heart.

This was my friend. A 23-year old boy. And I felt myself age just a little more.

So right now I'm definitely in a contemplative mood. Thinking about a lot of things. But the good news is that I'm still definitely clean and sober, and next Thursday will be my NINE MONTHS. Which I'm proud of. I've started exercising again, and am losing that bit of weight that I've been packing around for a while. And I'm working with my new voice teacher towards singing in Europe (hopefully) within the next 12-18 months. So life goes on. I'll pray for my friend in the hospital, for my cousin who is still over in Iraq, and I'll put all the memories from the house in Eugene in a special place in my mind to pull out some time when I'm feeling too overwhelmed by life's complicated things to remember the simple pleasures in life.

Cheers!
~Megan