2008: International Year Of Problems
Dear 2008,
I am glad you're dead. If you were a corpse instead of a construct, I'd stomp on you.
This year I lost my self respect, had some serious depression (like every year), quit my job, went without a job for months, got a job, got another job which I hate, lost a job (but not the job I hate), lived in three different houses without feeling at home in any of them, cried a lot, and somehow still didn't move back to Thousand Oaks. This year could be considered a triumph.
I also lost two teeth and starting fainting sometimes.
I gained a place that will be home soon, a little bit of a reputation (despite myself), a boyfriend who wants the best for me, a new family. I got my old family to come visit me (twice!) and learned things, but usually not things I wanted to learn.
I'm being vague. That's because I still feel like I completely fucked this year up. I can't be relieved, specific, or self congratulatory yet, not while I still need to apologize and make right with so many people. I think Christmas is at the end of the year so that if you've got the money, you've got a socially sanctioned period of time to buy back everyone's affections. (I don't got the money.)
I wish this year hadn't happened at all. At this time last year I had a job I liked (that paid less) and a different set of problems which were all avoidable in retrospect.
Here are the things about this year I will keep:
Taco Night
Lake Tahoe
Rachel and Mike's wedding
Watching Red Dwarf and picking up plums
A surprise birthday party, a boxful of "electrical equipment", a devious piñata
Jason Webley
The weekend we snuck into Kane's house to get Maddy a Buster Keaton costume
The bonfire, and the morning after when I got a ukulele
Walking home extremely drunk with Ben, Tony, Mike, and Jason
Halloween
Eating pizza and watching Obama win, then joining the festivities with Nan and John
Coming home from Santa Cruz to roses in the fridge
Lunch kidnappings
Complicated origami diagrams of awkward moments in our relationship
Coming back to the art supply store, where they miss me
Robo Dobo, and the pigs
Ok, I guess I wouldn't stop this year from happening. I'm still putting all my hopes into 2009.
Here are things that are good that have already happened:
I spent the second day of the new year in my bathrobe, drinking mimosas. I made homemade French toast.
A stranger who likes my art dropped $50 in my paypal account.
Kane and I may start a "whimsical stuff service".
I read two books.
I talked to my one cousin on my dad's side voluntarily for the first time.
I'm finally moving my stuff from the basement and my car into my house. MY house. No more clothes from a duffel bag (for the first time in over a year), all my books where I can see them. I showed Ben the drawings I made in high school; he made fun of me for drawing so many self portraits.
Here are things I will do this year: (Not really resolutions, more solutions. Resolution implies improvement, solution problem solving and breaking even.)
Find a job that doesn't give me panic attacks.
Get insurance, cure panic attacks, migraines, and fainting spells.
Remain in touch with my grandma. Remain in touch with my father. Remain in touch with my brother.
Settle debts, create no new ones.
Do better than break even.
Ok, back to your regularly scheduled absence.