new year's 2010.

it is a new year. the year of the tiger. which sounds pretty good to me.

i don't really know what i'm doing or where i'm going. everything is so quiet today, so far, and i'm pretty excited for what's to come this year.

i started the new year off right, by reconnecting with hum after 10 years apart. like no time had passed, it was amazing. a five hour road trip that followed a three hour nap after a six hour conversation. new year's eve. and then the reverse five hour road trip after a five hour nap after a nine hour party-show.

it was quite a bit of fun. and, honestly, it is what i will miss the most about the sliver of a charmed life i lead, if it changes. for a few hours, i felt very privileged.

i'm trying to think about things i want to do in 2010. to start, there were ten resolutions this year. quite possibly the most ever. but also quite possibly the most logical and reasonable ever. and also the most likely to be stuck to. nothing about not smoking, nothing about not drinking. nothing about losing weight. nothing about getting in shape. none of the typical, broken resolutions.

they are as follows, in no particular order:

1. decide to decide.
2. be happy (happier).
3. take better care of myself.
4. write. daily - work on writing a book?
5. make art. stay in art classes.
6. learn an instrument.
7. learn photography, technically.
8. go dancing more often.
9. read two books a month.
10. make more time for my family (back home)

pretty solid, rounded list, i think.

it is what i need to recover from these past few months, which i'd like to not look back on, but will inevitably be forced to over the next few.

christmas eve was awful.

christmas was a bust. i don't know that there will be another one like it.

the week between then and now has been eggshell-ish. but new years eve was only not fun for a couple minutes, and i am a firm believer in new year's significance.

for the last several years, i decided that new year's is an indicator of the way you'll spend the coming year.

it says a lot that the last five have been spent alone, after ever fell asleep hours before midnight. standing with a bellyful of excitement for the countdown. staring out the kitchen window of our old third floor apartment, watching fireworks in the sky over the river, thirty or so blocks away, in the dark, while listening to dick clark in times square on the tv.

almost always crying.

crying because i felt alone, even though, technically, i wasn't. crying because the year past hadn't been what i'd hoped it to be. crying out of fear for the coming year. crying because of a meager existence. crying for the sake of crying. crying out of hope for the coming year. letting the previous one go.

so this year. it was different. i knew i'd be spending it with a friend. in the same place as ever, but not really with ever, because he was working. i knew it would be both fun and exciting.

i didn't anticipate being with him when the ball dropped several states away. but he requested it, so i was. showed up a few minutes before. left his side a few minutes after.

i think all of these things have both weight and meaning.

and i know that things can only get better for me emotionally, mentally.

so i think that this is the year that i take back my life. take control of my own well-being. get behind the reigns of my happiness, and lead myself down a healthier, happier path. take charge and don't let someone else have so much impact on how good i feel or don't. make my own good time.

kick ass and take names.

because when things get complicated, it always helps to get back to basics. to revisit the same old adages i've been fed my whole life, but never really understood in quite the way i do now.

so that is exactly what i will do.

and, to keep me honest to resolution number one, a counter at the bottom of the page.

1 comment:

  1. the alone watching fireworks part? I've sooo been there, I knew that feeling exactly and like you, New Year's Eve was just not a relief that it was fun and different but it truly FELT as though something was in the air, something is meant to happen--in a good way--at long last this new year. It is fitting that it's the year of the tiger, the largest of all cats..definitely taking back the jungle for itself.

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