OK, funny how I left this journal in a bad mood, and I've been in so many different moods since then. It's almost two weeks since I was feeling like that, so down, so low, so confused and tasting that hole in the pit of my stomach. I admit that it was partly because I had a soccer game later that night. A game that earned me the right to be a full-teamer, not just a sub player. A four-goal game. A game in which I got tripped from behind worse than any time since high school, I'd have to say... And then I followed that game up with one a week later in which I scored 3, including a header... I LOVE SOCCER!!!

I was talking with my friend Jacki from high school -- it's funny what happened back then and how it can come back in floods. Like this: I sometimes forget how depressed I was in high school, how I tried to hide it but really wanted to be found out. How I would always make jokes to hide how bad I felt -- ooops! was that high school or now? anyway, talking about it made me think about cutting and self-injury. Not many people know that I used to do that. I only cut once. but my earrings were always about self-injury. That's why I pierced my ear multiple times. But nobody knew it; they just thought I thought I was cool. But Jacki knew. At least to some extent she knew. She knew because she walked that dark hallway.

And that's what I'm getting at. I have walked that dark hallway, and I thought I walked it alone. Turns out I only thought I was alone because it was so dark that I couldn't see who was there with me. She was walking the same hallway and could see it in my eyes. So now that I don't walk in that hallway much at all *except for random times when I am kept from sleep, like ASP year 1 and Emmaus* a big part of who I am called to be is the one looking for people who are walking in that dark hallway... Reaching out to them... Showing them the light. the Light.

Have a great day. I really mean it.

If you read this and it meant anything to you, e-mail me at brianvinson10@yahoo.com