So as the final hours of the
year tick by, most everyone else is looking forward to the changing of the
calendar with rapt anticipation and anxiousness befitting a four year old
hopped up on sugar and soda the night before Christmas. It’s the same thing
every year, everyone wants to wash away the misery and disappointment of the
passing year and welcome with open arms the coming one, believing that it will
finally be the year that they get the job they want, or the house they’ve been
aiming for, or they’ll finally get the girlfriend or boyfriend they’ve been
after, or even just that they’ll lose weight and get in shape. No matter the
meaningless resolution, people still share how excited they are to welcome the
new year and do away with the old one, with only a few showing thanks or
appreciation for the trials they faced in the passing one.
For me, the year started
with bleary eyed drunkenness and being carried to bed by Dean. Those days are
done, and in some ways I’m sorry to see them go, in other ways I’m not even
batting an eye that they’ve become a thing of the past. 2011 brought many
challenges for me, and I managed to overcome and conquer each of them with
style, grace, and a smidgen of dignity. I began the year desperately looking
for another job, pining away to find some other means of employment and hoping
against hope to find something, anything that was better, even marginally, than
the employment I found at HP. That came in April. April was a big month for me,
I got my own place, found the first job I’ve ever really loved, and I managed
to do it all through my own grit and determination.
June cast a bit of a pallor on the year as the longest and most sordid chapter of my life came to an end, and while
the pain and agony I endured from the fallout of that was something I thought would
end me, I managed to survive and persevere into the next phase. I found some
semblance of sanity from the ashes and I’m beginning to accept that despite my
claims at being the embodiment of evil and carnal trickery in the universe, I’m
actually a bit more decent than I would have other believe. Sadly the summer
didn’t end its bad new and disappoint there but dropped a bomb on me that
I’m still sorting through the results of. Dean has long been a living id for
me, allowing me to live vicariously through his lack of tact and overall
brashness, it was comforting to know that someone, anyone, existed in the world
that hadn’t been sullied or brainwashed into behaving as expected just for the
sake of doing it. But he found love and sadly, as happy as I am for him, with
that new dynamic came a passing to ours. I’ve spoken to him only a handful of
times since July and seen him twice. I guess even the longest running
friendships run their course eventually. The most startling thing for me is
that for the first time in about twelve years, I don’t have someone I can call
my best friend. Kind of scary to know that you don’t have someone you can rely
on implicitly.
That aside, the year was a
big one. I found my dream job, I finally struck out on my own, and despite the
odds of the universe seeming to conspire against me en masse, I managed to
establish what so far has been a welcome change in romantic dynamics. So things
are moving in the right direction, I’ve found my spiral as it were. I had a
year of stress, headache, heartache, chaos, loss, longing, and disappointment
but like the weary unwavering soldier I am, I carried on and I arrive at my
current point. I’m not quite happy, but I’m getting there. Life is only getting
better. I’m reminded of a toast I made with Eddie a couple of years back, I think
over drinks at a Dave & Busters of all places, a midnight showing of some
random movie, Eddie proposed that we toast to “Life only getting better” and at
the time, in the back of my mind I reasoned that if I could just manage the
insanity that was my day to day, and keep it consistent, I’d be content, but
here I am, sometime later, and I find that my life has only gotten better, and
remains on the uptick. Not to say that it isn’t without it’s setbacks and
problems, but for the most part, I’m more prepared, less jaded, and more
resilient, I’m wiser without being bitter.
I look forward to the new
year, not because I want to deny the trials of the ending one, or even any of
the ones that came before it, we are the culmination of the experiences we
survive, and the end result of the challenges we overcome, and there is
something beautifully noble in that, something admirable about admitting that
we’re far from perfect but all the same we’re still working to find something
close to it, and we’re willing to stumble, to fall and eat shit, to suffer and
toil, to risk failure, just to find something more, to make what we have
better. We are only as strong as we allow ourselves to be, and we owe it to
ourselves to make every year, not just the new ones, the best we possibly can,
to continue to strive to achieve more and make every day count. So it is with
that thought in mind I propose a toast, “To life only getting better, every
day, in every way. May we find happiness in uncommon places and be surprised at
every turn by none other than ourselves and those we hold dear, and may life
remain interesting, challenging, and fulfilling. To all of you my friends:
love, laugh, enjoy life, and work at making each day, not just each year,
better than the one that came before it.” Cheers.
