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This all stemmed from a seemingly superficial conversation which disguised itself well.

There are people who never question their existence. (I want to knock these people over the heads.) There are also people who question their existence and decide they have always known what is right and that they'll continue on that path evermore. Then there are those who question existence with each passing opportunity for knowledge, and the question seems to set their entire being/world in motion when it's something profound.

I've always been a sucker for integrity. I find myself easily pointing out fallibility in others: that's not what he said last week, and that's not what she would normally do. I have a dark love for things that never change. In fact, I don't know where this obsession with integrity stems from, because I know my own mind has challenged itself enough to display something that... I'll go out on a limb here... others might consider a lack of integrity in my character. (The love of that which never falters I think is a huge issue for me, since we humans will never attain this. But that is not what I want to write about, and in addition there are several cultures which began with experimental and imperfect gods. Moving on...)

Let me explain something first. I've always considered myself quite a bit more liberal than my friends. I have always allowed myself to entertain doubt and to play the devil's advocate, just so I can understand a situation from many facets of explanation. It's not that I think people with loud integrity are just overfull with hubris (although I have to admit I've thought about that being a possibility). It's just... so unfair, to only come at something from one direction and shun the others as impossibilities in your world. I think life screams out at us daily that it's full of possibilities, and our own stubborn minds do not listen. Look around you. You cannot go a day without meeting someone or seeing something that disagrees with you on some level.

Throughout this lifetime of possibilities, my core being has never changed. I have always remained the same on one level only, and that is my spirit. I say this because of many examples of proof: the way I have always treated other humans, the way I have always thought of sacred things, and the way I think. Even the way I think, which has undergone countless changes, still remains the same in one way that makes me comfortable in my own skin. Some things are feeling the same now at 23, facing the challenges of everyday adult living, as I did at age 8, hugging my mom and playing general manager of a non-existent store that I swore had the best prices on printing brochures in the East. (Yes, I was that dorky. I also "owned" a wholesale furniture store for miniature families living in doll houses, and set up a hospital for insects named General Bugpital with my sister.) I realize that last sentence contains a dangling modifier, but it's too late in the evening to mess with that.

Anyway, I guess what all this blather is really about is that I'm the same. I'm the same, and I'm not the same because of all the experiences I have dared allow myself to have. I can't say I came at all of them full speed ahead with a marching band, but I have never regretted a moment. Everything I have learned has become a part of the same basic Amy, the one who loves to hug and the one who never forgets who is important at the end of the day.