The Couch

            I have this couch; it’s an old grey, slightly tattered, cheap, Ikea, piece of something that kind of resembles a couch.  It’s been scratched, washed, thrown around, slept on, sat on, spilled on, laughed on, slobbered on, and a whole list of other absurdities. Why bring up the couch?

            My couch sits in the middle of our living room. It’s where we watch movies, where we have family conversations, where we cry, where we laugh, where we think, where we watch music videos, where we read, where we sometimes sleep, and where our guests stay. That couch represents hours of laughter, deep conversations, and plenty of tears. I have held, and been held on that couch. It knows all my secrets, and the secrets of those I have lived with, and currently live with. That couch represents home.

            Tonight I’m sitting on this couch. The house is quiet, and I’m the only one home. Tonight I sit on the couch and listen. Tonight the couch and I have something in common. The fact that the couch and I are both growing, and as it has aged, as I’ve aged with it. We are the different in essence, but the same through change.

            Tonight I sit to analyze where life has taken me in the past three years, and how much I’ve grown; the dreams I’ve watched come to life, and pass away. The possibilities of tomorrow, and the growth within myself through the changes and encounters that have came, gone, and currently presenting.

     This is what I’ve come to know by laying on this couch tonight.

I’m terrified of what tomorrow might bring for me, but that won’t stop me from jumping into life tomorrow.

Bittersweet is always better than sweet or bitter alone.

Laughing and crying, pain and happiness, they shouldn’t always be seen as separate.

Home is where your family is, and family doesn’t always fit the dictionary definition.

Love is worth nothing, unless you give all the love you have, away.

Life should always be lived as a measured risk.

             I’ve lived here for three years, and every crazy teenaged dream I once had about moving to the city, taking wild adventures, and traveling at a whim have been met. A new chapter of this amazing life is unfolding, and I’m so excited to see what happens next.

            Pain will be inevitable moving forward, but with an open heart, happiness will come with it. To feel true happiness, is to willingly take on the possibility of true pain. I’m ready.

The Sun is Rising