I am well aware that the title of this blog is a bit of a misnomer.  It’s not even close to being a daily.  Hell, it hasn’t even been a monthly since last October.  It’s sort of been a vestige of my former self– a tribute to a life that I no longer lead, and haven’t led in quite some time.  I stopped writing when I no longer wanted to know myself.  When I no longer wanted to be intimately familiar with my thoughts and feelings– when I realized that I romanticize the people in my life to the extent that the way I view them is not the way that they actually are, but the way I believe they should be– a way that they never intended.

In the seven months since I mused on what it meant to turn 23, I have had more new experiences than I can even begin to count.  My life has begun over and over again, and looking back from week to week, the person I was in my memories seems almost unrecognizable. She has been sullen and angry and confused.  She has lashed out, with the intention to hurt others. I do not pretend to like a lot of the things that I have said or done, especially when they have hurt people that I care deeply about.

For too long, I have played the victim in my own story. I have taken the things that have happened, and I have allowed them to consume me. I have given people too many chances, and expected them to love me the same way that I love them, when that’s simply asking them to be someone who they are not. I have burned bridges, locked doors, and pushed people away over and over again– for fear of being annoying. For fear of being hurt again.

To be honest, I don’t think I could have handled another heartbreak over the past several months. It had gotten to the point where I was willing to give up friendships over a decade old because I didn’t get treated the way I wanted.  For someone who is supposedly so mature, I often act like a brat when I don’t get my way.  It’s something I’m aware of and working on, but I also recognize that those thoughts and feelings still crop up.  They’re still inside me, and I’m fighting them every day.

But in spite of all this– in spite of the ways I have been wrong, I have finally started to realize that this is not the way the story has to end. [This is the part where Idina comes in.]

Every morning, we are given the opportunity to start our lives over and be different people than we were only a day before. We are not stagnant, one-dimensional creatures: we are malleable and mendable.  We have the chance to adjust the sails and become stronger– become better.  For far too long, I have blamed every single person in my life for the way I have felt– except for myself. And that has to stop.

I have been lonely.  I have been one in a sea of 7 million, bustling along the cross streets of Manhattan, trying to make a name for myself in a neurotic, haphazard existence.  But through all these ups and downs, I have made the mistake of confusing lonely with alone.  I have blamed others for not reaching out, when I myself was so locked away that it was impossible to break in. I have been a hypocrite. I have been all of the things that I have never wanted to be.  And I have a secret for you: I am glad.

Because at the depths here of my sadness, I have become better.  I have fought monsters.  I have stared into the abyss and had it stare back at me.  I have broken down, questioning every single decision I have ever made.  And out of this has emerged a person I never thought I could be.  Someone who is brave.  Someone who is not devastated by the mistakes she has made.  Someone who is not dependent on people, but knows that needing people is not a weakness.  Someone who can look at the things that have happened to her and forgive.  Someone who can forget.

Every single morning, we are given the opportunity to start over. To lead the lives we thought we were too cowardly to seize.  Yes, they may not be the lives we imagined.  They may not even be the lives we wanted.  People may be missing that we expected to be around forever.  The jobs we have might be slightly off from the ones we wanted.  We may not get everything we thought we deserved.  We may even get more.  But the fact of the matter is that between now and the end of this crazy existence that is just numerous journeys around the sun: we will keep adjusting.  We will keep learning and growing and making mistakes.

I have a lot of bridges to mend, both with myself and others. I have a lot to make up for, and it will be a long process to get to where I’m going.  But I look forward to the challenge.  I look forward to being in the arena, covered in blood and sweat and tears.  I look forward to confronting my fears.  To being a better colleague.  A better daughter.  A better teacher.  A better friend. And I hope that I do all these things with more grace than I ever imagined I could have.  I hope that for you, too.

We are all Always Starting Over, and we will end up exactly where we are meant to be, with the people we are meant to be with.  We must continue to love each other and to give each other room to decide that it’s okay to start over– because love is the best thing we do.