It's not always easy to speak your mind,
sometimes you need to be forced to do it.
Sometimes, it's better to just keep things to yourself,
play dumb, even when your whole body is
aching to come clean.

I stumbled across a song on the radio that has been on repeat loop on my mp3 player since I got home an hour ago. The lights in the house are all off, save the Christmas tree. And in the distance, the skies are so clear I can see Genting Highlands from where I am.

We're going to be waking up in Paris on February 14, 2012. Ask me if I started 2011 thinking that was ever going to happen and I will cheerfully tell you - NEVER! I barely started the year with great faith as it was - Dublin, London and Barcelona in a whirl-wind of 10 days. I stood at the departure gate in June, texting - You're going to show up right? So yes, the city of lights and love barely 9 months after? With only 2 months of planning? God forbid!

So much has happen, I am finally allowing myself to take stock and well, hopefully at the end of all this - come to my senses and do what I need to do ~ reduce one item less from my desk drawer. Yes, the keys are still there - right at the back of the drawer to boot.

I am lame, I know. Using each and every excuse in the book, throwing logic; left, right, front, back and center. And I accused a friend of the same not too long ago - shame on me!

It is only because of the vino that I am admitting this - I am afraid. Of anything and everything when it comes down to it.

Heart beats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave
How can I love when I'm afraid to fall

One part of me (added of course by reading past posts) is nagging at me that I have failed him. That he hinted, he waited and I have let him down. Simply because I am afraid. I can say ~ he'll understand. After all,  aren't I the famous one for coming round to my senses, in my own time?

And another part is driving home - we do not have a thousand years Barbsie. If anything else, I have been taught that lesson very well in the last few weeks - life doesn't go on forever as we assume it would.

I will be brave
I will not let anything take away
What's standing in front of me
Every breath
Every hour has come to this

The year ends is a little over 20 days. I do not know what next year may bring me but if I do not give it a chance to show me, I'd never know.

He may not have said it all, but he has said enough for me to do this...

One step closer