With the range of people this letter is going to, I can not begin to scratch the surface of what I'd like to say to each individual person, so I'm going to attempt to say what I need to but instead of organizing it, I will sort of lump it together. Screw explanations, I never really used them before, why should I start now? Read on, if you please.

I have timed (tried to time...) this so I think it may technically be the first letter you recieve in 1998. For no reason other than mere....well, I wanted to be as close to the premier mail this year as I could be. If I'm not, it's too bad. Nothing was lost.

To some, it has been a great year, full of what you had hoped for, and you look back upon it fondly. To you people, I hope you enjoyed it, because I wish you a sad and rueful new year, and for the simple reason that if you can look back upon your year with an overwhelming tinge of happiness in your heart, you don't deserve another like it. May your 1998 be one that prompts people to be sympathetic for your situations, and may you not recieve that sympathy from everyone you hoped you would. In this manner you will discover your true friends, and at the same time experience (hopefully) some of the melancholy that has been so due to you.

To others, who have had rough waters this year, not rough as some would think, but rough to the point of... shall we say "injury" I wish to you a new year in which you fulfill some of your wishes without them causing you to forget your past. These are the people who deserve more good times, because they know the opposite, they know what it is to suffer, to know that one more twist of the knife would spread the wound so far open that recovery would be impossible. And may they live with the scars, so that they know what it is like to be trodden upon.

To those who have had a year of adversity in 1997, may you all also have a year of easier times, for you have also seen what the other side can be like, but in times of adversity, you've stood proud, and though each slap in the face made you madder and madder, you put up with what you were given, and you are all the stronger for it. May your years be tolerable this time around, and may you also see that through it all, there are people behind you. And may you be granted the wisdom to realize who is there for you for concern, and not for the other reasons people would be a friend.

In closing, I would like to thank the people who were there for me this year and in years past, the people who helped me through rough times, and who let me (feebly) attempt to help them too. To those who would be a friend to me in name, but only in practice when they stand to gain from it, though I wish you a happy new year also, I encourage you to look around. Realize where you stand, and also realize where those who stand by you are truly set.

--The Child. He of many names to call, many minds to use, one heart to rule him, and no soul to sell.

"The feeling of he who throws himself over the edge of a building must be very sane. That is why he screams all the way down."
--Stephen King (pseudonym Richard Bachman) in "Rage", part of "The Bachman Books"

"The happiness which people talk of so is intangible, fading, and false. It is a ruse used by those who would choose not to look around to see what is going on. All that is real, all that matters, are moments of true happiness, which blaze like a star, but fade out over time like the shades on a photograph, and times of suffering, for those times are truth, when our eyes are open to everything, and when we know that the end is hear. The closer the end draws, the more you understand, the saner you are."
--Source Unknown.