if today was your last day

Today was my last day of Summer 2009. How depressing. I am now going my separate way, and the others will soon follow suit. It has been a nice summer, and a pleasant one. I have enjoyed myself immensely and hope everyone else has as well. I do dread finally going my own way though, wondering constantly if I will succeed or fail completely and utterly in the coming year. I have no doubts that my friends will succeed in anything that they wish to do...they always have and presumably always will. They will rise to the task. We only get one pass at life, win or lose, pass or fail, there is only one shot. However, I have always learned much more in my failures than my successes. There is always room for improvement when I fail, when I succeed I become complacent...something that I should despise but all too often succumb to. I am a driven person, but it seems that I all too often get stopped on the rest areas of life and do not want to get back on the highway, as some have described it. I have become more disillusioned over my lifetime...something that I would like to reverse but secretly know that they must stand. I do not champion cynicism or pessimism but I believe that there is something in those ways of life and thinking. Yet unbridled optimism and idealism can be just as successful and a much happier journey. I do not want to let my friends go for now. I know that they need room to grow and live their lives with or without me I am going to have a hard time letting go. I know that I will see them a good bit still but it really won't be the same nor should it. We will come back together with new stories to tell and different outlooks on life, which should only breathe new life into these already perfect friendships and allow them to change and grow. I also do not want to become mired in the past or race to the future. The present is all we really have...and all we really ever had. The past is important that "dark unfathomed retrospect" but if it rules our lives than we cannot possibly live. The future is a fun thing to think about but it is also a funny thing...always changing and showing us how silly our aspirations can be. I look forward to this new chapter in my life, but the characters from the previous chapter (I am not dehumanizing them, I am simply using a book theme) will hopefully play a vital role in my story and I in theirs. Well I am done thinking for now so I will just stop while I can.