2009 - The Year of B-rad

2008 with its ups and downs has taught me one thing: that I have got to live for myself. I have spent a good deal of my time trying to live to make other people happy. I don't know if it was out of obligation or just trying to be a good person or to have others believe that I am a good person, but I have learned especially lately that I cannot do that any longer. It feels good to make other people happy, but I have learned that you, well at least I, cannot find real happiness in just trying to make others happy.

2008 was the year of Brad the doormat. Me and a friend were talking about some of the happenings in my life and she said Brad don't let yourself be the doormat. Probably the best advice I have gotten in a long time. During some serious introspection at the typical end of the year resonance period and due to some things that a different friend said that really made me question who I am. I have always thought if I was one thing, I am a good and loyal friend. I am the person people feel totally fine calling at two in the morning to talk about a problem, the person that takes someone out of town when they just need to get away and escape life, the excuse someone can use to get out of a bad date, an unwanted family event, etc. The person that if you tell a secret to and asked not to tell will take whatever it is to the grave. I am a vault.

What I have noticed is that I have spent way too much time trying to make my friends happy that I really have started to lose some of the qualities that I need to have to make myself happy, since I have learned I can't make my friends happy all of the time, I should just focus on what really makes myself happy. With this new plan don't worry ya'll, if you need to talk at 2 in the a.m. I am still awake, give me a holla, and you know I am always up for a spur of the moment vacate, but I am going to do things differently. I am not your doormat anymore.

This is the year where I get my life back on track, the year that I live my life for me and not for anyone else. I need to rediscover who I really am and not define myself by what ya'll think of me. Recent events in life have kinda shattered the one thing that I thought I was good at and it has really got me thinking of what I really need to do in life. I need to get comfortable in my own skin again. I kinda lost that this past year and I miss that self assurance that I had in who I am.

So here's to 2009 a year to redefine, reshape, and be happier.