New Year's Audit
So, this is a tradition I started a few years ago. Not really sure when, now that I think about it. A while, anyways. It wasn't always called this, but then, I am too lazy right now to look up what I DID call it in the past.
Whatever. A name's a name. Only valuable as a definition.
I try to look back at the beginning of each year and see what the last one brought me. Evaluate what I have accomplished...and what I've failed.
So far, this year isn't looking good. 2009 I mean. But I guess I'll get to that.
Typically, I think I go in chronological order. But I'm not sure that's going to work here. Something just tells me that what comes to mind should be first, and that I should write as I feel rather than filtering like I usually do.
GOOD:
-I got, and kept, a job. A job I hate. I got and kept a job I hate for months. It's been one of the longest employment streaks I've ever held, beyond Toddy's which had the benefit of high school to provide not only a kind of break/variety, but a structure. I've had a lot of jobs over the years, it's true. But this is looking like it may make a standing for the longest held job of all time. It's probably surpassed the "most hours worked" line by a few weeks by now, having been full-time for so long.
-Cami. While I don't often look back with fondness at a broken relationship, this one I can say I did just fine. It ended because we decided that we weren't right for each other; she couldn't handle some of the darker, more oft hidden aspects of who I am, and that's fine. That's life. But I think this relationship was a good, enjoyable one. Educational in some respects. Reflective of where I once was, and where I am now. The ways I've changed since my first relationships, and the ways I've been exactly the same.
-Liz. This is one that will appear in both columns, as so many relationships do. But Liz was a good experience as well, while it lasted. We worked out fairly well together, on the levels that I sought. Liz served as a kind of redefinition of my "list" as well; I learned that intelligence isn't enough. I need intelligence with creativity, abstractness. The ability to process information is one thing; the ability to understand complex irrational systems is another. She didn't have that, and it's something I need in "her." Still, I tried my best to do well by her, and until we broke up, I think I succeeded.
-Aubrey. This is a bit unexpected in some ways, to me. But I realize that going out on a limb and trying something usually antithetical to my nature was a good experience, if a rough one. One that I don't regret. That in itself is rare.
-I forgave a woman who hurt me in the worst way a woman can hurt me. I'm still proud of myself for that.
-I live in my own space, paying my share of rent and utilities and such. I have my own laptop, my own toys, my own LIFE. At the end of the year, I don't live with my folks again like last year.
-Roseanna, and the friendship I maintained with her, should be in this list. Despite some lingering frustrations, bitterness, and general blah over the whole situation, she is still something for which I was grateful this year, and something I intend to rebuild in the year to come.
-Someone out there is living thanks to me. Not just alive as she was when we met, but truly living. I used my gifts and talents and heart to open hers and unleash a beautiful creature on the world. Whether I actually appreciate or want to be close to that creature is irrelevant in the end; her life is better because I was a part of it. And in the dozens of times that I feel like shit about myself, I can hold on to that and say, not everything I've done in my life has been met with disaster.
BAD:
-Autum. One of many relationships in my life into which I've gone far too blind, far too quickly. I opened myself to a woman whose lifestyle was just not conducive to mine. Whose preferences and social habits and such didn't fit well with me. And I paid for it.
-I opened a door that had been shut for years, just to find that there was nothing behind it. Just as I knew there wouldn't be. The inital mark is fading; only time will tell if the scar is worse for the effort.
-This year was a year of stagnation. While I roamed far and wide in search of what I thought I wanted, in the end I am left without. And without much more than this job (and all that it enabled) to show for it. I have not visited one church with the intention of starting a movement of which i've dreamt for years. I have not made any progress towards supplying that movement. If anything, my relationship with the Founder of that movement is worse than it has been in years, mostly because I don't trust Him. I've gone almost nowhere in 365 days; I'm no closer to a career, I'm no closer to a wife, and I'm no closer to the Followers. In the end, this was my biggest failure...but one for which I can also blame the "repetitious mechanisms of the universe." Were I no slave to finances, perhaps I could have done more with this year. Instead, I am bound to my job, and the hours it forces me to keep; the frustration and daily sense that I have accomplished nothing, which somehow (in typical "clinical depression" fashion) leads me to accomplish even less.
So the list isn't long this year. Neither list is very long or expansive this year.
But that final point really sums up why. It's hard to have a long list of failures when you don't have a very long list of efforts.
2010 begins. Do I have any goals? Do i have any hopes? Where do I want to be when 2011 begins?
Very little of me cares. And that's the darkest harbinger of them all.
Whatever. A name's a name. Only valuable as a definition.
I try to look back at the beginning of each year and see what the last one brought me. Evaluate what I have accomplished...and what I've failed.
So far, this year isn't looking good. 2009 I mean. But I guess I'll get to that.
Typically, I think I go in chronological order. But I'm not sure that's going to work here. Something just tells me that what comes to mind should be first, and that I should write as I feel rather than filtering like I usually do.
GOOD:
-I got, and kept, a job. A job I hate. I got and kept a job I hate for months. It's been one of the longest employment streaks I've ever held, beyond Toddy's which had the benefit of high school to provide not only a kind of break/variety, but a structure. I've had a lot of jobs over the years, it's true. But this is looking like it may make a standing for the longest held job of all time. It's probably surpassed the "most hours worked" line by a few weeks by now, having been full-time for so long.
-Cami. While I don't often look back with fondness at a broken relationship, this one I can say I did just fine. It ended because we decided that we weren't right for each other; she couldn't handle some of the darker, more oft hidden aspects of who I am, and that's fine. That's life. But I think this relationship was a good, enjoyable one. Educational in some respects. Reflective of where I once was, and where I am now. The ways I've changed since my first relationships, and the ways I've been exactly the same.
-Liz. This is one that will appear in both columns, as so many relationships do. But Liz was a good experience as well, while it lasted. We worked out fairly well together, on the levels that I sought. Liz served as a kind of redefinition of my "list" as well; I learned that intelligence isn't enough. I need intelligence with creativity, abstractness. The ability to process information is one thing; the ability to understand complex irrational systems is another. She didn't have that, and it's something I need in "her." Still, I tried my best to do well by her, and until we broke up, I think I succeeded.
-Aubrey. This is a bit unexpected in some ways, to me. But I realize that going out on a limb and trying something usually antithetical to my nature was a good experience, if a rough one. One that I don't regret. That in itself is rare.
-I forgave a woman who hurt me in the worst way a woman can hurt me. I'm still proud of myself for that.
-I live in my own space, paying my share of rent and utilities and such. I have my own laptop, my own toys, my own LIFE. At the end of the year, I don't live with my folks again like last year.
-Roseanna, and the friendship I maintained with her, should be in this list. Despite some lingering frustrations, bitterness, and general blah over the whole situation, she is still something for which I was grateful this year, and something I intend to rebuild in the year to come.
-Someone out there is living thanks to me. Not just alive as she was when we met, but truly living. I used my gifts and talents and heart to open hers and unleash a beautiful creature on the world. Whether I actually appreciate or want to be close to that creature is irrelevant in the end; her life is better because I was a part of it. And in the dozens of times that I feel like shit about myself, I can hold on to that and say, not everything I've done in my life has been met with disaster.
BAD:
-Autum. One of many relationships in my life into which I've gone far too blind, far too quickly. I opened myself to a woman whose lifestyle was just not conducive to mine. Whose preferences and social habits and such didn't fit well with me. And I paid for it.
-I opened a door that had been shut for years, just to find that there was nothing behind it. Just as I knew there wouldn't be. The inital mark is fading; only time will tell if the scar is worse for the effort.
-This year was a year of stagnation. While I roamed far and wide in search of what I thought I wanted, in the end I am left without. And without much more than this job (and all that it enabled) to show for it. I have not visited one church with the intention of starting a movement of which i've dreamt for years. I have not made any progress towards supplying that movement. If anything, my relationship with the Founder of that movement is worse than it has been in years, mostly because I don't trust Him. I've gone almost nowhere in 365 days; I'm no closer to a career, I'm no closer to a wife, and I'm no closer to the Followers. In the end, this was my biggest failure...but one for which I can also blame the "repetitious mechanisms of the universe." Were I no slave to finances, perhaps I could have done more with this year. Instead, I am bound to my job, and the hours it forces me to keep; the frustration and daily sense that I have accomplished nothing, which somehow (in typical "clinical depression" fashion) leads me to accomplish even less.
So the list isn't long this year. Neither list is very long or expansive this year.
But that final point really sums up why. It's hard to have a long list of failures when you don't have a very long list of efforts.
2010 begins. Do I have any goals? Do i have any hopes? Where do I want to be when 2011 begins?
Very little of me cares. And that's the darkest harbinger of them all.