I am a winner.

I have beaten odds to get where I am today.

I have felt some pain every time I have walked another step forward, yet after having taken even one step back, I hae known that regression and giving up were not options for me. I have felt the emptiness of sepraration as I have moved in the wrong diretion.

I have learned the arts of persistence, tenacity and dedication. I know how it fees to watch my world and dreams statter to a million pieces at my feet. I know what it is to run until there is nothing left inside of me, and then run some more.

I know how it feels to be loved, and I know how it feels when that love grows hard and cold.

I know how to be happy. I know how to smile and spread joy into lives of others with that same smile.

I have learned that one conversation can make or break a fragile mind and heart, and thus I have learned to choose my words carefully.

I know that enthusiasm is the key to everything, and yet I know how it feels to completely lack enthusiasm.

I have learned that winning is not everything, but sometimes it feels like it is the most important thing. I have learned that other color ribbons only prove to make that blue so much sweeter. I know that my chief competitor is always myself.

I know that sometimes my best isn't good enough for others and that people can be cruel. I know that sometimes I get frustrated with myself, especially when others are frustrated with me.

I know how it feels to have something means so much to me that is is me. I have experienced wrath, outrage and fury, but have still made it through the storm a survivor.

I knwo what it is to love. I know how to spread joy and how to extract it from even the darkest situations.

I know what hope is, and I rely on it as my last refuge. I know that dearkness must exist if only to make those tiny bits of light seem that much brighter.

I know that success is self-made, and that luck is a relattive term.

I know that I am strong.

I know that miracles do exist, angels do find us in our hour of need, and there is always something behind me, pushing me forward.

I believe in myself at all times, even when I think that I don't and even when I feel liek no one else does.

I know how it feel to be lost. I also know how it feels to be picked out of a crowd. waht it is like to be the winner, and how it feels when, for one moment, you are the star of the show.

Above all, though, I know that all of this has made me ME.

I know that being a winner is not about winning whatever race facese me in the moment. I recognize I am winning just by pushing myself every day and by wake up each morning feeling blessed by the day that les ahead of me. Though this I am winning in the most important race ever, the race I entered at birth - this race we call life.

- Amy Huffman