Another year here. I don't like the saying "Another year gone." It's pessemistic. Why mourn a good year when you can celebrate the coming of a new one?

This was a different summer. I tried something I've never been very good at before. Mixing friends.

There are basically two types of people. Thermometers and Thermostats. Thermometers change to match their environment, while thermostats change their environment to match them. I have always fallen into the first catagory.
I have had church friends and my school friends; my druggie friends and my neighorhood friends; my old friends and my college friends. And around each of them, I have acted differently. This is a skill, something of a survivial skill. But it also means that I have never been able to integrate my friends properly. They were always each friends with a different Stephen, and didn't get along well.

Somewhere in the last couple of years, that changed. Someone told me I found myself, I disagree with that. I was always myself, I simply combined all of my layers. Maybe I became less eager to please others, more confident of myself. Who knows. But it worked. All summer I had camp and college friends in the same gathering. Or my sister's friends with my high school group. And it worked.

The best of both worlds. The good of all with the bad of none.

"Most of all, to thine own self be true."