Shadows of the Passing Year

The final hours of the year are drawing in and with them go another calendar. It’s always been a bit of an irony to me that most everyone looks to the New Year as some kind of rebirth, some token landmark that will grant them a reprieve from their troubles and somehow endow them with the wisdom to fix every ill they encounter. I say it’s ironic because wisdom by definition predisposes that this line of thinking is, for lack of a better term, retarded. Sound minded, reasonable people clamor together as the clock strikes midnight and the calendar changes and all anyone can think of is how the New Year will be the one, the one that will see them married, or off to a job they really like. They seem to think that a calendar needs to change in order for them to accomplish anything of value.

I’m not averse to the idea of using a symbolic milestone as a watermark for new life. Hell, I’ve met many people that say their life really began when they became a parent or when they found true love (I’m guilty of that last one), so the idea of beginning a new chapter in life is something I have no problem with. It’s the concept of leaving behind all the woes and misery of life with the passing of a year. It doesn’t mean anything, really. Taking a hard line approach to it, time in itself is a manmade construct and it doesn’t really amount to much in the grand scheme of the universe. The calendar we subscribe to is actually a Christian invention and thus an indirect buy out of some measure of Christianity (take that Atheists) so it’s all arbitrary when you really sit and analyze it.

All of that having been said, I actually find myself looking forward to the coming year. I will, come hell, high water, Armageddon, or the apocalypse, finally lay to rest once and for all what I’ve termed The Long Saga with Nicole. I’m also going to get my book published and stop sitting on it (almost five years in production and to be honest I haven’t done very much with it in terms of development since I penned the last words to it on December 28^th 2007. Those are my main two goals and really the only things I actually give a damn about accomplishing in the New Year. Both of them are easily attainable goals so I see no reason I can’t get it done.

The passing year for me was a bit interesting to say the least. I awoke New Year’s Day to dim lighting and my best friend passed out on my floor gripping a Hefty bag with all his might. I knew then it was going to be a year out of The Twilight Zone. I was working Karaoke at the Brass, having a ball and still miring away in the same job. I move mid-January into my current apartment, and found a new object for my affection in mid-February. That last bit turned out to be a horrid decision. I opted to pursue a sycophantic bartender that ended up spelling my doom instead of bringing me happiness. When the dust settled in early June from that debacle I found myself reaching out to the only person I trusted to give me an honest answer to the only question I felt really mattered right then, “Was anything about me genuine?” Nicole was honest and said quite possibly the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard “You were the only honest thing about our relationship”. From the ashes of a failed endeavor and old one sprang forth, and I set back on the path to what I’ve always felt has been my destiny. I made the journey to see Tool in San Diego and it was then that the Long Saga began again. A late night text advising me to be careful and expressing love (we hadn’t even seen each other) was all it took to send my elation at seeing my favorite band into over drive and leave me on a plateau of happiness I hadn’t fathomed. The end of July I found myself on the receiving end of a show of vitriol that would have turned Hitler’s stomach. The Sunday following, a year to the day since Nicole had walked out of my life; she was back in my arms. Funny how life works out.

The middle of September found the flood gates of my emotion reopened, leaving me feeling and dealing with everything I thought I’d left behind and also sprawled on a blanket in the cemetery having lunch and reveling in the beauty of my love. I knew happiness again. A week after that and I was barred from entering the bar I’d called my own since before I could drink or even buy tobacco. John had given me the death knell and axed me, citing too much drama with the psychotic whore bartender (she accused me of stalking her) and too much grief from the owner (who has now sold the shit hole, or so I’m told). So I bid farewell to my friends, and closed a chapter in my life. Two months later I found myself stuck in a choice of whether I wanted to indulge in what most would see as self-destructive behavior or realize a dream. I took the former but told most everyone I did the latter. Such are the choices we make in life.

2010 began with no great fanfare and it’s ending better than I’d thought but not as well as I’d have liked. At midnight tonight my thoughts will be elsewhere, lost in the ether and drifting on the currents of something beyond us all. But I will smile, I will revel and I will do my best to embrace the warmth and camaraderie of my peers. Every day that passes from now until my last is a testament to what the human spirit can accomplish. I was told I’d become a failure when I was younger, and I proved that to be untrue. I was removed from my high school and left to the whim, of fate and I managed to find a silver lining. I was once told that the love I sought was beyond me and I fought against all odds to make it my own. I have done the impossible, and that makes me mighty, but we all have. We have all conquered our obstacles, we have persevered through the hardships of our life and made the best of whatever hand we’ve been dealt. It is by the tides of time, the ever present passing moment and the inescapable urge to capture and hold onto what we have, what we know, and to attempt to see the realization of what others say can never be that make us mighty. We are all stronger than we know, capable of so much more than we ever thought possible, and no matter what is to come in the next year, the one following, or the one that lies distantly ahead, I have no doubt that I’ll still be here, walking the planet, making life difficult for at least one other person, and still sharing my insights, my thoughts, and doing my best to eke out a life that is not just content but also happy.

I wish you all, the very best that the universe has to offer. May you all keep the love you’ve found and find innumerable ways to make it better. To those that have yet to find love, I wish the winds of fate to bring you the greatest happiness a person can know. The world is a beautiful place, full of wonder, joy, and love. My most fervent wish, aside from having Nicole in my arms, and calling her my own, is that each and every one of you find within you the capability and the compulsion to recognize the wonders of the world and how integral you are in it. I love you all my friends, and I hope the New Year is not just better than the last but that it sees the realization of our dreams and brings all the blessings of pleasure and bliss we ever fathomed.