One.

For almost everything in our lives this is true: We are always looking for one. By one I don't mean "the one" but that is part of it I suppose. But when you think about it it's true. You want to find one person to spend your life with, the right person. The right job, that career that's just meant to you. We have one bed (or at least we generally do), one family that you create, one home. And by home I mean where your heart is not where you're living. Or at least this is something you genuinely believe. Ahaha, in my world, you have one kendo dojo, one first physical affection anything. One first love, one true love, one soulmate, which may or not be one in the same. There are just so many things in our lives that we want, have and are looking for one, the right one.

These past few days I spent in Lodi/Sacramento. I drove a lot by myself and it gave me a lot of time to think to myself. I have for as long as I can remember grown up and lived in a major metropolitan city. Los Angeles, San Francisco Bay area. Texas doesn't count I was two when I left. Lodi is a small town, it doesn't even have a mall, it doesn't have bordering cities the way I'm used to them. I spent time in Santa Cruz too but I think that was a bit different since it was a summer program :p. Anyway, it's a different feeling, it's almost more homey but at the same time it's empty. It's a warm kind of feeling you get, not cold like LA can be. But when it's where you grow up you get used to it, you learn to walk the walk, to talk the talk. It was also then that I realized that in life you end up where you want to be ultimately, and where home is isn't the city that's there, but where your heart is. I think I could spend the rest of my life in a small town if everyone I cared and loved was there. Where you are doesn't matter, it's what you love that does.

I also thought about myself. I'm really weird, not always politically correct, not the most tactful person, not always appropriate, loud,impulsive,can be very airy and slow,can worry too much among so many other things,but fuck I love myself.
Because despite all of my flaws, despite how much public humiliation I will bring you, how many times you will bow your head in shame and pretend not to know me, if I consider you a good friend, I will do everything in my power to be the best friend that I can to you.

I don't say that lightly, and anyone who knows me well can attest to this.

It's who I am, it's how I operate, and I enjoy being me. I remember what it was like to feel like to lose everything, and have to build it back up. I remember what it was like to be so insecure that I woke up doubting myself. That was a miserable feeling.

I know that I will never return to that feeling. I know that life can never be that bad anymore.

We are who we are.

Respect is one thing.

Public opinion is another.

I've learned that once you stop giving a shit about the latter, you gain more of the former. Those who can't respect that aren't worth the thought. Those who care too much about the latter aren't either.

And those who can see past it all, are worth everything in this world and the next.