One year.

I've been a bit quiet lately, but that's mainly because I've been moving around a bit, and a lot of the places I've been I couldn't get at the journal system. But I got the boys to rig the PDA they gave me for Christmas so I can get in from wherever I am. Mainly because today's a sort of important day. Well, for me, any way.

If you flick back through my journal to this time last year, you'll find a really badly-spelled first post. Yeah, a year ago today I turned up at the school, and promptly made a nuisance of meself. *wry grin* There's been a lot that's happened since then, and surprisingly, I'm not about to say it was all bad, or even mostly bad. Because being at the school... well, it saved my life. True it risked it in more ways than one, but at least at the school I know I have a chance at a future. Where I was, where I come from? I'd probably have been dead by now.

The other thing the last year's given me is family. Not the people I'm going to meet up with soon, the ones who brought me into the world, but the ones I think of as family. I don't need to make a list - they know who they are. It still amazes me sometimes, how much a difference having people you care about in your life makes. It was bloody hard to let people in, after the run I've had, but it's worth it, it really is. I hope people can say the same of me.

Well, I thought it was romantic...

Manuel and I made a deal, and my end is these runes tattooed on the chakra point over my solar plexus:

URUZ: Strength, Endurance
Pressures arise which tear away everything except your essential nature, revealing levels of instinctive strength and self-knowledge untapped in less stressful times. Psychic bedrock is struck; you must respond decisively from your core, or be wounded. This is the Rune of ENDURANCE.

THURISAZ: Force; Giant, Thorn
In the circumstances you now face, enormous destructive power, neither good nor evil, is available to you. Although dangerous, it can defend that which is dear to your heart. You can choose whether to release its devastating force--and incur your choice's responsibility. This is the Rune of BLIND FORCE.

GEBO: Partnership, Gift
Any partnership must be bound together through a mutual exchange of gifts. Perhaps the exchange is material, but it may be mystical, mental, or sexual. Perhaps it is a gift of trust. This is the Rune of THE RITUAL OF COMMITMENT.

***

I forgot to say in my last, we'll be back Friday, probably in the morning, depending on flights and weather and the rest of it.