It's strange to look back to when I first moved to New York City. I was rooming with a prior friend that eventually turned out to be a terrible situation, looking for some sort of connection with those I met in the city, and generally trying to make sense of the world. Now, it seems that the drive to do the latter has atrophied.

I've been looking back at some of the traces of those times through e-mail and other communications, and there was a core of people, mostly in their 40's, who knew what I was going through, and tried to help, since they'd been there before. I can only hope that one day I'll do the same. Even with the mistakes I've made in my life, I hope there will be a way to try to pass on what I've learned.

Today we celebrated the birthday of my father's goddaughter. I've known her since she was born although naturally as I went off to college and spent less time with my parents, I spent less time with her as well. Now she also lives in New York, so we all gathered for dinner.

Her father died two years ago, suddenly, from a cancer that had metastasized, and only had about nine months to live when they found it. He lived to see her graduate, and that was the last milestone in her life he would ever witness alive. Since then she's managed incredibly well, gotten a stable job, found a boyfriend she seems happy with, and overall moved on with her life; something I greatly respect her for.

I have another friend who lost her father to a common disease that was misdiagnosed for years, so that when they finally did find the actual cause, it was too late. She too has endured through this pain, soldiered forth, and continued to find a mostly fulfilling life despite life's setbacks.

Why am I threatened by this? It's the innate fear that I wouldn't be able to handle things of this nature; that I would break instead of bending. Lately things are going better, but the stress of everyday life is enough that I can't let myself imagine dealing with something of that magnitude on top of the normal stresses and sorrows. Maybe that's something that's true; maybe not. There have been many people who, when faced with minimal stresses breakdown, but when the larger challenges occur, they rise admirably to the occasion. I hope I would be one of those. I hope never to have to find out, although I know in our lives family members' deaths and other large issues are inevitable.

I don't know. I find myself admitting that a lot more nowadays since I've had a recent reminder of just how uncertain things are and how suddenly things can change. I only hope that if something of this magnitude happens, I can rise to the occasion, not just in the immediate, but over the years that follow as well as those I know have. I don't think that's a frivolous thing to wish.

And it's another year, one I'm thankful for and yet at the same time somewhat wishing that the Mayan apocalypse had happened. I try to be happy; to be upbeat despite all other influences inside and outside, but every year seems to be harder. How to reconcile this is the largest question in my life right now, but I seem to have few answers other than keep moving forward regardless.

Lately I've been having quite a bit of pain from adhesions left from the appendicitis/internal bleeding/abscess surgeries I had back in 2000. It flares up from time to time, generally relating to stress, how well I've been sleeping, and who knows what else. All I know is that it hurt me all day today sitting at my desk, an occasionally flaming pain in my mid-right abdomen as I tried to stretch it out at regular intervals.

Originally I was angry often about this - the incompetence that caused three operations for the above reasons in 3 subsequent weeks and that almost killed me (literally, blood pressure 40/20 before they finally tranfused me). There was the adjustment back to college after a semester of recovery, then finding out that according to medical bias I couldn't sue or gain anything except pain from this. The belief it was over. Then the recurrent pain, year after year. Now I think it's just like many other things, the economy, the lack of raises, the constant rise of costs, rent, health insurance, every other expense you can imagine versus anyone's income; pain and disappointment. What was supposed to happen didn't, in fact did the opposite and made things worse due to incompetence and (in some cases malpractice).

What to do? I'm trying to switch to e-cigarettes instead of the actual, trying to rest more although the stress from working has been wearing on me, and in general just trying to make things workable. The added pain has really blindsided me though, no real reason, just bam, a week ago it hurt to move. Sometimes I wonder when I'll ever be free of these unexpected blindsides, but know I must keep moving on. I will keep moving on.