So, I was waiting in front of a restaurant to have lunch with my friend when a married couple that I used to spend time with left the restaurant.  The guy, Casey, looked right through me.  We went to church together, and Casey and I were very close back in the day.  We used to tell each other everything, and he knows some deep secrets about me.  He looked right through me.  His wife followed suit and it was as if they thought I was a lamp post.

It was at that moment that I realized exactly what 2011 was all about.  I spent the entire year looking in my life's rearview mirror.  Truthfully, I spend quite an expansive amount of time reflecting on my past in the first place, but I dwelt on things that I hadn't even considered thinking about in previous years.

I meditated on Joe and what he meant to me in ways that I hadn't done since his death 10 years prior.  I fixated on why I wasn't having sex and what that meant about my identity considering it was always so wrapped up in sex.  I wondered whether or not I could've done anything more to help Adam, Nick and many of the other friends who now want nothing to do with me.  I reflected on my youth and questioned decisions I made and whether or not I'm on the path that I truly want.  I'm surprised nothing more tragic happened to me because I wasn't paying attention to anything around me.

It's time to move beyond some of the shit I was carrying around with me.  I felt so downtrodden because of the administrative tasks imposed on me by being part of the Rainbow Alliance at school, I felt like I had this daunting task of trying to get into Portland State and go to Paris.  But everything's worked out.  I mean, my 16 months are up, I had sex last night (it was wonderful and more than I could hope for), there's an interesting little Facebook experiment that I got plugged into... it's a community page dedicated to uplifting queer people, I have amazing friends and family that I'm definitely going to miss while I'm abroad...

It's time to look to the future.