Meeting up with an old friend you haven’t talked to in a year is like drinking out of a cold cup of coffee. You’ve just spent the last hour thinking, “ooh, I still have coffee!” And then feeling disappointed as you remember that it’s cold and nasty. Then at some point you just take a drink without thinking about it and then you just end up feeling awkward about your mistake. You realize that both you and the coffee have changed, and maybe not always for the better (on the coffee’s part of course, you’re perfect in every way) but some things are still the same, like the bitter aftertaste. Then you and the coffee talk about what you’ve been doing for the last year. The coffee got married young to a hot guy, her in-laws pay for their housing cause they’re rich. The coffee’s husband is in medical school at 21, he’s got a good career ahead of him. You’re still living with your brother and trying to resist the urge to live in the woods with a pack of wild dogs. You tell the coffee that, she laughs politely. The coffee still loves Jesus, you believe in him but you also like to cuss him out every once in a while. Then, you part ways and you think about maybe making a new cup of coffee, you take a nap instead. You can’t tell if you’re better off for it.

At the end of the day we are all illiterate cows begging for our lives.

There is nothing like the feeling of knowing you had a horrible childhood but looking at your parents now and not being able to reconcile the two. My memories come back to me and I wonder why my mother never protected me from my father or my brothers. But talking to my brothers I can’t see that they would ever hurt me. My father never did that did he? He never slapped me for a simple sentence right? He loves me. I know he does. My mother was standing right there and all she did was yell at him. She didn’t slap him back or anything. But the mother I know now. The mother I talked to yesterday would never have stood for that. My sister knows what my brothers did, even when I didn’t remember, but she never talked to me about it until two months ago. How can I reconcile my family with who they used to be and who they are now? Sometimes I’m talking to my brother and he’s funny, and he’s sweet, and he’s kind, and he loves me and then I remember what he did and I don’t know who he is anymore. Is who he used to be who he is or is right now? Was it a simple mistake or is this his character? Was it a product of how we grew up and what happened to him or was he born this way? How do you live knowing what you know but no one else seems to remember it? I love my family but should I?

Kvothe is one of the most relatable characters I’ve ever read. He hates himself but he’s so proud of everything he does. I get that, I’m an idiot and I’m brash and I say all the wrong things but when I do something well the whole world has to know it. And like Kvothe I feel like I don’t deserve my friends. I tell everyone that what has hurt me in the past no longer hurts because it was so long ago then I make an excuse leave and go and cry behind my “inn”. I think that everyone should be a little more like Kvothe. He’s not afraid to do things just because it is dangerous he runs into fire to save a friend without a second thought. He risks expulsion to get a ring because it means a lot to Denna. He feels everything so deeply and sees the things others don’t. He knows himself so well at 15, he knows exactly what he can and can’t do. Kvothe may be brash and stupid and not think things through but he’s loyal to a fault and he would die for his friends and die happy. He may forget that he promised to meet Wil and Sim but he’ll make it up by buying them a drink with his last coin. It is impossible to not love a person like Kvothe. My goal for this year is to be more like him