I’ve put a lot of work in to get where I am and I know it’s not as far most people who barely try. I made some big mistakes and set myself back pretty far, but I didn’t really have an advantage to begin with. After all this time and all this work, and the friends I’ve lost along the way, It’s hard not to be bitter about the people who went out of their way to hurt me. Their lives look big and fancy and fun, at least from this distance. Enough so that they can wave their arms around and say “I must be doing something right. Look at all this stuff and all these people around me.” Meanwhile, I’m waking up early and working late, only an hour or two on each end for anything not work related. It’s hard not to think of them. I hope that one day I get to walk past them with some of the rewards of my work obvious in my walk, my appearance, or some other quality. I hope I get to read about them slipping on a banana peel or hear about from one of the few friends I still have. It sucks that they got to ash their hands of it and just move on, while I’ve been down here carrying around the hurt and regret they gave me for way too many years. And still more to go before I’m through it.