Desmond & the Six Words (with the unexpected exhortation).

The months have quickly zipped by, and it's been nearly a year since I left for Ireland. One year! It honestly feels like a while ago that I was fretting over flights, and making friends, and the coats and clothes I would bring overseas. And now all that has come and gone. Wow.

It's still too early to make that end-of-year-I've-accomplished-so-much/little speech, but whenever you do look back and consider your life, you should make mental (or literal) note of your conclusions. Because I'm pretty certain that when December--the real time for the end-of-year-accomplishment speech--comes, other things would have taken place. And those other things will stand out more in my memory than the first half of the year, simply because they would have just happened.

Going with this theory of recentness and memory, I suppose I would also like to take the opportunity to remind my present, August 11', self that whatever has happened thus far, will soon pass. The joys and the pains, and the intense feelings that have risen out of recent events: they will slowly fade and give way to new joys, and new pains, and new intense feelings.

So to my present self (and any precious readers), take heart. Take heart. Because four months from now, you will find yourself saying, "the months have quickly zipped by...". And there will be all measure of truth in those six words. I can't tell you for certain that your situation will have changed for the better, or for the worse. But I can assure you that the change will come, and the hope of change should spur you to that: hope.

And even if four months from now, it seems worse... remember that months from then, from Decemeber 11', the same six words will still apply. And there will be fresh hope again then. The months will quickly zip by.
For me, I hope in God. I don't know what I hope, but I hope in God.