This would probably be a good New Year's day post...but I'm writing it on December 22nd instead.

Today I had one of those magical moments where I found the answer to my own thoughts and prayers in someone else's words. I was reading my friend Todd's blog, and it near about floored me. He was writing about the way history tends to repeat itself, and said, "So my friends, don't be surprised if 2009 ends the way it started or if a semester comes to a close in the same fashion it began. The trick of it all is to learn from the often symmetrical journey and be better for it." Holy Cow. For me, 2009 is ending nearly exactly the way it started. I started 2009 with uncertainty and excitement, along with a fair amount of heartbreak and angst. It's been a year full of ups and downs, lessons, strange romances, wrenching of guts, and newly discovered strengths and weaknesses. And yet somehow, I'm ending the year where I started it. Same uncertainty and excitement, albeit about different people and events. And, unexpectedly, the exact same feelings of angst and heartbreak. Same cycle of existential pondering--doubt, inner anarchy, acceptance, confidence, certainty. Same Karissa. So Todd, maybe you're right. Maybe history repeats itself. And maybe it repeats itself so that we can do things better the second time around (or the third, or the twenty-seventh). I've been handed some of the same events and opportunities I was handed a year ago. The difference is, I'm going to do it right this year. I'm going to trust what I know to be right, and simply do it, even if it hurts. I'm going to move forward instead of clinging to the past. And, though I may not get it 100 percent right, I will live 2010 better than I lived 2009.