2012 was bleak for me. I lost my grandfather and my aunt within a week from one another. Soon after, my girlfriend left me to be with someone else. I moved out of the house that we had rented together, and left her with the first two dogs that were ever partly 'mine.'
She left me with the last dog we rescued, Gatsby. Before we brought him home, she clarified he was my dog and that if anything happened between us I was to take responsibility of him. I guess I should have seen the break up coming.
So now here I am. Alone in this house, with Gatsby. I mostly think about how one day I'll have to leave him behind too. It's too easy to become jaded by loss and abandonment. It's too easy to tell your friends that you have work to do, just so you don't have to go out and face them. It's too easy to stop caring, when caring is what hurt you in the first place.
So is "all we love we leave behind" my most painful realization of 2012? Not quite, but close. These events took place about 5-6 months ago. From then until now, AWLWLB has been stuck in my head, but the most painful realization happened just recently. I _have_ to go on loving anyway. I have to keep trying to make relationships and friendships work. I have to put forth effort, whether I'll lose them or not.
It's not about what you've lost, but what you had. Eventually all of the things you have, will be things that you once had, and that's all you will ever have.
Here's to 2013.