So it begins...

2013 went out like a weary whisper, and 2014 is beginning as more of a hopeful purr.

I get all these lofty notions of all I will do and accomplish during my days on Earth, then never muster the motivation to really go after achieving them. I'm capable. I know that. It's my drive that falters. I lost it all those days ago. Those days that have turned into years and have brought little healing to my heart.

I give a good show though of my smile and laugh to others. But no one still on this Earth knows me so well that they can hear the hollowness of that sound and the emptiness of that grin.

I chemically altered my brain for too long and my ability to easily find happiness is broken. Now, I get it in little burst of hearing the babies laugh, or seeing someone I love. That never broke, I can love. I think I love even harder than I used to. It's just the true joy that I lost.

In my deluded effort to try and numb all that hurt I had in me for all those years, I ended up numbing the capacity to feel content and peaceful happiness. I am what happens to former drug users that don't die or continue their addictions. I have the capacity to thrive, but lack the capacity to enjoy that thriving.

Maybe somewhere, someday that will change. Maybe it's that I am still wrapped up in the throngs of grief that makes life feel like this. I don't know though if that grief will ever ease. Or if I want it too.

But like I said before, I do look at this year with a little more hope. Medically I am more optimistic, and maybe with any luck that will start a chain reaction from my insides through my brain and to my heart. I might find that bit of me I lost those years ago. I may not. But I choose to hope I still will. And that, in and of itself is reason to think it will.