I wonder how many people sit down on New Years day to write a blog about resolutions? I've never been one to think I'm original when it comes to that, so it's not like I think I'm the only person in the world doing this. But is it in the hundreds? Thousands? Slap-my-ass-and-call-me-Charlie-millions? I dunno. What I DO know is this is the third year in a row I have sat down to sort of hash-out what happened last year and subsequently plan for the year ahead. Ready? Good. I'm not.
2013 was not a great year for me. I think saying that pure and simple is the best way for me to illustrate it. In "scrub" terms and for some of you commoners I'll say 2013 was kind of bull shit. It was one of those "pick me up, knock me down" types of years. What I'm realizing as I write this is maybe each bad year skips a good one? For instance, 2011 was an awful awful year but 2012 was damn near perfect. So maybe you win one and then lose one?
When the year started I knew I was in some sort of trouble but I didn't really know what kind of trouble it was. You know the feeling when you've maybe... I don't know, boasted a little too highly about yourself and then had to put your money where your mouth was? For example: "I know EVERY lyric to EVERY Beatles song EVER written!" "I can eat two ENTIRE medium pizzas from Pizza Hut in one sitting!" "I can run four miles WITHOUT getting tired!" "I can have a fulfilling year without planning ANY of it out and still think it'll be as AMAZING as the previous one!"
I'll let you decide which applies to me although the pizza statement may not be too far from the truth on any given day. So like I said, when it comes time to shit or get off the pot, often times we spoke too loudly right from the off.
I started with four resolutions in 2013: get published, move out on my own, get in the best physical shape I've been in, go back to my roots of what I'm good at. I achieved three (3) of them. I moved out into my own apartment in March, started getting into better shape in June and July and sort-of maintained it (still look better shirtless today than I did a year ago (boom)), and as far as roots go I did get back into writing new material, my form of photography, and cooking. Some of those fell by the wayside for a while before I moved out, namely the cooking.
They weren't extreme goals to set (apart from the publishing (I'll get to that later)) but that's never the intent for me. I would never want to set a resolution so high it would be unattainable, nor would I want to set it so low as to have it fall in my lap. I found a meme the other day and liked it so much that I made my own version of it with a picture I took this summer on one of my runs.
I think the problem with resolutions is our uncanny ability to make it all about fixing ourselves. Dropping a bad habit, adding more exercise into our routines, whitening our teeth, taking better care of our hair... they are all about fixing something usually outwardly wrong. What if it wasn't about fixing it but instead examining it, determining the best course of action, and then granting ourselves a do-over?
You might say that's the same thing about fixing it but eat shit, it's my blog and I'll romanticize it how I want to!
Ugh, I just realized I have to go to the grocery store today.
There are all kinds of things I want to do this year but I now feel writing most of them down would be shooting myself in the foot. I feel like saying some of these things out loud would be to jinx myself. Last year I decided I was ready to fall in love again, and in a lot of ways I did. It wasn't full-blown IN love, but I was definitely on the way to it... when it ended in June, it put a damper on the rest of the year.
That's the honest truth.
I still miss Scout, I still think about him a lot and what things might have been. What they maybe should have been. But then maybe it being a new year now means I can move on the rest of the way and let the hurt slip off my shoulders. Being able to say "last year" rather than "a few months ago" seems to put so much more time between myself and the event. Do you agree?
I want to get into even better shape and I'm not opposed to joining a gym, and I know it takes 21 days to start a routine but I just need to get the determination to commit to those 21 days. There is a reason gyms get crazy this time of year and then resume to a normal pace by February, and I don't want to be one of "those" people who join just to feel better about themselves. To that, I suppose we'll see?
So you're probably asking yourself "Well what's the fucking resolution then? Does he even have one?" And yes, I do. And while it will be relatively easy once I get off my ass and do it, it is still the most ambitious thing I've ever attempted.
I will be published this year.
Stop the press, holy cow! I alluded to it in a blog a month or so back but I didn't want to claim I'd get it done by the end of the year because I knew I wasn't giving myself much time to do it the way I wanted to. My brother has aways been a big proponent of me self-publishing through Amazon and my biggest holdback was the fear of once I published digitally, that would be the end of my book. An e-book, no less, which is something I never wanted. I think I speak for most novelists (or self-proclaimed authors) when I say there would be nothing better than holding a physical, bound copy of my book.
After all, I started writing Episode I of the Onyxus Chronicles more than 13 years ago. 13 years. By now the book would be a teenager entering puberty and having sexy-time thoughts about other people! I would never want to throw it out to the world to merely be a digital blip on the internet. But then he told me you can still get your book printed (on demand) and self-publishing does not make you release your rights to the book, you still retain them. If anything it just makes the book more visible were a REAL publishing company to see it and say "Hey, this is neat, lemme throw money at you."
So yes, the resolution for 2014 is to be a published author. Doesn't mean I'll change the title of the blog or stop putting myself down for all of my shortcomings as a writer, it just means I'll have a little more street-cred. That's what the cool kids say, right? Depending on how it goes, maybe I'll publish Episode II. And while I'm at it, who knows, maybe Episode III will see the digital light of day as well? Rest-assured, there will be a release party and a subsequent blog of me squealing from the rooftops in excitement. Stay tuned!
2013 was a year of changing it up. Taking the proverbial bottle, shaking it as hard as I could, and busting off the top to see what would happen. Falling in love, experiencing another broken heart, feeling literally broken (thank you busted ankle in March), losing a loved one, and moving along on my own. It was rolling with the punches, licking my wounds, and just getting back on my damn feet to face whatever came next. I've never felt that way before. I've never felt like I had to just keep going because it was certainly going to get better, only because it sure as shit couldn't get any worse.
It's a great drive to bettering yourself. It's a terrific guide to learning how to start over and rebuild from the ground up. I've done it before, I spent a year perfecting the art of it, and now I just need to do it again. Can't be that hard, right? I'll do what Edmund Lee says I should do. I'll surround myself with all of the dreamers, doers, believers and thinkers that I know. And because I fail to see it in myself so often, I'll also surround myself with the people who see greatness within me.
Because if they see it, there surely must be some kind of spark lighting their way. Have a safe and happy 2014, everybody. Thank you for getting my fan page past 100 likes, thank you for pushing the blog views over 6,500 last year, and thank you for just listening to what I have to say. Or reading, as it were. You are the unofficial family that gives me all the support I need.
Ciao for now (c:
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