I'd say that life is what you make it, but I also acknowledge that's cheesy as hell. Basically life can be hard, bleak, and long...but it's worth muscling through for so many reasons. My over analytical mind likes to take the pros and cons and weigh each.

Things in my life that have sucked:

- I lost my father twelve years ago. Two days after he passed I lost my grandfather (my father's father), thus I never really got to know either of them very well even though I was almost 18. We just never...knew each other. I constantly have to tell myself to not be like him as there were a lot of things he did that hurt my family...nothing physical or anything, but I see his faults in me and I have to make sure that I'm my own man.

- One of my friends committed suicide a half a year later just before high school grad. It still haunts me. I also lost a good friend recently who was a year older than me to testicular cancer. That still haunts me. I've lost a few other friends to drugs.

- I suffer from a lot of constant pain. I've been diagnosed with TMJ which can be brutal, and after an injury have to see a chiropractor every 2 months due to a lot of back pain. I over stress about money though I'm doing quite well for myself, but it will keep me up for 3 days.

- I often don't sleep well.

Things that keep me going:

- My fiancee. She grounds me, loves me, comforts me, accepts me. I'd be lost without her. When all is said and done and I'm ready to check out, I know that everything else will be trivial and that loving her will have been the best thing I managed to do on this planet.

- Music.

- My family and friends. Their love is unconditional as well and I need that every day.

There is a lot more, but that's enough of a rant.