Here's To You

Here is to all of you.

To you who told me I could never make it. That my life would never be a product of my abilities, but rather the consequence of the world I was born into. That I could never make a difference. That I would be the person everyone told me I was meant to be.

To you who told me I could. That my dreams would never be maximized. You showed me all the world could give me if I only gave to it. You painted the walls of my soul, and awoke me to all the possibilities I was told were out of reach.

To you who taught me that money is not everything. That this world could be so much more than it is today. Money is only paper and we can do so much more than collect piles of it. You taught me to grow rich from experience, from life. That the value of my very being could never be a number; it could only be measured by how much time I had spent soaking up the rays of goodness in the world. You brought me out of a small world of artificiality, and into a universe.

To you who became my best friend from the time we were six. You taught me joy. You brought it into my life and you made it stick. You showed me how to dance with passion and fire and happiness. And you never told me no. If I needed you, you were there. If I wanted to talk of running away to Europe, you played along and asked where we would go first. You instilled in me the ability to laugh at myself, and to laugh at you. I am forever in debt to you and your glowing spirit. Don't let anyone extinguish your gingerness.

To the culprits of my broken heart. Boy after boy, and man after man, you all chipped away at it. It was not one of you, but all of you. You made me fall fast, and you broke what was never yours to break. To you I say, you will never break it again. Someday your heart will break too, but know that I never wished it upon you. I hope you never know the pain you have caused me. But I hope you never cause it again.

To you who loved me well. The five of you that I know are my soul mates. There was never a better reason to use the term soul mate. To you who makes me smile, to you who sees my soul, to you who picks me up, to you who never judged, and to you who melts my heart. To all of you who must know that life brought us together and will keep us together. That I would never be who I am without each of you. That you have touched my heart and brought a light into my life that could never have been found without you. Know that your life is more valuable than you will ever know.

And to you who I am waiting for. Someday it will no longer be you, or me. It will be us. You will love me and I will love you, and it will be just like that, nothing more. Because that is all we need.

Here's to you. The lovers and the haters. You made me the person I am today, and because of you, I am proud of me.