Here Goes

Make the most of yourself for that is all there is of you.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

Each year seems to get stranger and stranger. Not in a bad way, necessarily. This year was no exception - although I can't necessarily explain why. Some days I feel like I am living in sort of a sub-existence, disconnected from that to which I should be connected; i.g. conversations about the weather with the fuschia-shirted woman in the elevator or children with the pregnant lady in my office whose belly button has just recently popped out and is afraid she may have to go on bedrest but will not know for sure until next week. I have never been comfortable with small talk. Really, never. I do not feel sorry for this. I am not whining. It is just a fact. I've accepted it. I have even mastered a technique of walking backwards while nodding in agreement or throwing out some generic response to the this-diet-works-best-for-me thread and then looking down at the paper I am holding as if it is important (even if it is only the Mapquest printout of directions to the furniture store)and turning to walk away. I nod a lot these days.

But this year I've made some strides. I got a job that I love. I am more confident. I am starting to make decisions for myself and not decisions that I feel like I am just supposed to make because that's the way things are supposed to be done. I feel like I am starting to make my own tracks instead of following in footsteps that I never felt comfortable in following. And that, that feels good.

This year my step-brother died. He was 16. We were not close. But damn, do I miss him. Or more so, I miss getting a report of his latest mischievous stunt from my dad. We were never close for a few reasons, but one was because we never lived in the same house. Shortly after he became my stepbrother I went to college. When I was home for the holidays he was always gone to visit his dad in Ohio.

I found out something during this time about my family that in a way shocked me. I learned that bitterness can run very deep. In fact, so deep for some people - people you are supposed to look up to, people you are supposed to respect - that they can hate another person even when that person is suffering something so tragic as the loss of a son or brother.

This realization was not comforting. In fact, coming to terms with this realization is almost as bad as coming to terms with my step-brother's death.

But in seeing that, I have let go of my own bitterness.

And that is good...

In the next year I hope to accomplish many things. They are not big things. They are small things in the greater context of the world. But to me, they are significant. And to me they are important.

And on a lighter note, I do have a couple of things on the agenda other than getting a handle on my own neuroses ( from which I will spare you any further annotation).

And here they are (in no particular order):
1. Finish Infinite Jest and then work through the stack of unread books on my shelf.
2. Do some more paintings.
3. Remember to call people on their birthdays (I've been told ecards do not count as birthday greetings).
4. Make more time to read (obvious).
5. Learn/do Yoga.
6. Watch all the movies I've been meaning to see, but just haven't gotten around to because there are always those new and shiny ones at the front of the movie store. A couple I can think of are Apocalypse Now and, for the love of God, I am determined to get through Godfather III in its entirety.
7. Learn how to play tennis.
8. Take more pictures.
9. Cook more.
10. Buy a couch.

So anyway, here's to a new year, full of promise for self-improvement.
Cheers.