I have come to understand I will never climb a pyramid in Egypt or visit Antarctica.
I may never be the woman I once dreamed I would become or even the kind, bohemian old lady who lives down the street.
I may never write the best selling book that will touch millions.
I will never be a saint.
But I will always be a good listener, a faithful friend, one who speaks straight and true, one whose word can be trusted, and one who never truly loses faith or abandons hope entirely.
I will always stand for the weak, speak for those who have no voice, work to protect the innocent.
And I will always be a person filled conflicting and sometimes contradictory characteristics, a person prone to deep solitudes, tinged with sadness, a person whose life is filled with moments of gorgeous brilliance and moments of impenetrable, inconsolable darkness.
I am more than I ever hoped to become but less than I have dreamed.
