2021 seemed like the year to finally just "get it right," y'know? Maybe that was just for me. After the shit storm of 2020, I'd pick myself up from the gravel, dust off my skirt, and make a real gift out of the things before me. This would be aided primarily by Covid-19 being brought under control (it wasn't) and also probably some sort of circumstantial thing (not that either). So how did the year end up being alright? Or rather, why did it end up being alright? I don't know, to be honest.
Everything comes with issues of one variety or another. Sometimes you keep it local and order a good iced-coffee from a cafe, finding at the end of your drink there's a fly frozen inside one of the ice cubes (ask Andrew, it happened). It could be finishing your basement, new carpet and all, only to have the sewer line backup with raw sewage and result in said basement being torn apart. Sometimes it's finally biting the bullet and purchasing a truck, only to have gas prices rise uncontrollably after. There are instances where you get into the best shape of your life and then get lazy and allow it to all slide away effortlessly. And sometimes it's coming to terms with what you thought was going to be a flawlessly perfect relationship ending up with specific caveats of its own.
Yet still, the year was fine.
I often find myself wondering if there's reason behind feeling melancholy when I write some of these blogs, and I worry that I feel this way because when I finally bring myself to sit and write something, it's the truth of who I am coming out through words. It certainly wouldn't be a surprise to have that be the case, as my words have typically been a free-flow of raw thoughts and emotions I sometimes didn't even realize I had in me. Nothing groundbreaking here. This all brings me to the conclusion that I should be writing as frequently as I possibly can, yet despite this conclusion, I'm often running in the opposite direction of doing so. There might be a metaphor or, like... an anagram or acronym or... or something... hidden in this fact. You run from the very thing that will help you work through your issues because working through them means facing them and facing them means maybe changing things.
And the older I get, the more I fear things changing. You might find that funny, really, because I used to be all about the change... though change is sort of everything but fun now, and this fact makes me feel like a curmudgeonly old man. That part I'm okayish with.
Looking back at last year's resolution, it was to take the steps necessary to recapturing my own happiness. What that looked like was open-ended, as I'm a fan of doing, and in a few choice ways this was a successful resolution. Funny enough though, I don't feel I can accurately even explain what those few choice ways are, which is odd. I suppose underneath the immediate face of this happiness was really just the "choose what you want to recapture and work toward it" mentality. That would be a fair summation, because I did choose to do just that. I came to terms with not wanting to be on social media platforms, because they didn't really make me happy. Andrew and I got back together, which on its face has been wonderful, and underneath said face has still been lovely if not drawing up things for us both to work on individually and as a couple. And I suppose the last biggie would be finally taking the time to ask myself the questions I should be asking over where my life is at, what I am doing, and where I want to go from this point.
Y'know, easy light questions.
This year marks 10 years since I embarked on filming 26 Golden Things. 2012 was (and remains to be) probably the best year of my life, and I can see a bit more clearly now as to why that is. While it was a year of focusing on myself and what made me happy, it was also a year of instilling great change in my life. Not because I wanted it, but because I needed it. I find a decade later that I am back at that point once more, standing at the precipice of a lot of choices. What they are, I'm not comfortable divulging here, but just know... some are large.
Andrew and I sat down last night to watch the movie because I said I wanted to be inspired to write this blog, coming at you almost a week late. Did I find said inspiration? Not entirely, but it did help me out a little bit by seeing what I had once done and knowing that I could do it once more. No, it won't be buying a new car (though if Honda reaches out to trade in my lease early, I will be there in a heartbeat),
26 Golden Things will forever be a project that changed me in profound ways, moving me drastically from one mark to the next and outlining a road map for me (and anyone else that was a part of it) on how to make things better. Ten years later, "making things better" now involves a therapist to help navigate the stresses of life/work/love/home ownership, but that's just part of growing up sometimes. We can't stay living at our parents forever with no debt and expect to grow from it, as I did in 2012.
This all brings me to my new resolution. If 2021 was about taking the necessary steps to recapturing my happiness, then 2022 is about making the changes that will set me on a new path. I'm sure I'll be shouting about some of them in no-time, that's exciting part about "good" change, isn't it? Getting to share your own happiness over what is going to be different in your life? A lot of these things are a ways off and many won't come to fruition even this year (TBD, honestly), but I'm ready for them. Not right now, of course, as I nurse two broken toes from dropping a mirror on my foot at work, but soon. Soon.
Until then, toodles gang (c:
