and it's coming into sight as the days keep turning into night...

This is for the old Irish man that stood outside the bus window in his tweed cap and jacket and winked and waved at me.
I've been thinking a lot lately about how one year can change the course of an entire life. Then I began to think of how inadequate a year is to measure a life. I am 23 years old. What does that mean really? 23 years means very different things to different people.
I feel as though we are intended to live each year in the direction of the kind of life we want to live. I've spent the better part of the past two years working landscaping and being unemployed and wandering around strange parts of Europe and pouring scotch in dark, ritzy bars. When I was in school, it was easy to justify doing simply what I loved because it was leading up to something, I was moving forward in my education, my prospects, my skills, my life...but what can I say for myself now? Have I stopped moving? Am I stuck? I don't feel stuck. I feel like I'm making decisions, not on the year, but in the moment, that make me very happy. Because in reality, life moves by leaps and pauses, not through years and numbers. If I'm not living every moment as the kind of life I want to live...what good is a year to me?
In The Shack it says "Today we are throwing a big rock in the lake and those ripples will reach places you would not expect."

So this is to the Irish man who made me smile and laugh and wave back. Whose actions, unknowingly, made me realize that I am happy with this day, with my life.
I hope I can live my life to do the same and watch the ripples return to me in beauty I did not expect.