2013 > 2012

Pardon the recent hiatus: I’ve been flying  all over the place, moving my schedule around to accommodate inconsiderate people and/or entities who continuously delay and/or cancel and/or push plans and appointments on me, trying to wrap up things at work and outside of work before the end of the fiscal year…and oh yeah, I was down and out for 2 weeks with a wretched sinus infection.  Luckily most of 2012′s loose ends have been tied up and I’m crossing my fingers for a happy and fun 2013.  I have an ambitious agenda this year, and now that I am a married homeowner who is going to start law school in August (assuming I get in, ha), I’m more or less done fucking around like an overgrown wanton superficial teenager and wasting my time, or, perhaps most importantly, allowing others to waste my time. Hopefully this doesn’t affect my writing.  We’ll have to see.

2012 showed me what happens when time is wasted, and also how anyone’s whole world can become completely ruined in an instant.  For me personally, 2012 was an  absolutely horrible year for many reasons.  I developed chronic, excruciating TMJ that has not gone away in nearly 8 months, most likely due to the continual stress of dealing, way too much, with other people’s bullshit. [Note to self: say "no" more often when asked for favors.]  TMJ aside, I lost half of my shit in a fire that could have been so easily prevented that it’s not even funny, and then less than a month later I lost my brother.  The last six months have consisted of living in a quiet hell of pretending like everything is okay when it’s not okay at all.  From playing nice with grating people to grating my teeth while trying to be nice, I’ve come increasingly closer to just flipping the fuck out on nearly every person I know and moving to a remote yurt in Montana.  But that wouldn’t really do anyone any good.

2012 showed me who my real friends are, but it also showed me that even the most highly regarded people in our lives are far from perfect, and that there will come times when said people pull inconsiderate, hurtful, cuntastic or otherwise stupid shit on you, sometimes without even realizing what the fuck they’ve done.  2012 taught me to really lower the fuck out of my expectations.  And to aim hard not to rely on anyone other than myself, as relying on others leads to severe disappointment and/or problems 9 times out of 10.  Also, most people are generally either flaky and unreliable or just totally fucking shady and self-serving.  Pick your poison! 2012 showed me that family can be either incredibly precious or incredibly absent, and that sometimes, no matter how hard we try to do the right thing and show filial piety, our elders are completely fucking bonkers, and/or irresponsible, and/or generally shitty people.  Consanguinity in the genealogy line does not guarantee sanguinity in the relationship.  I should so get that tattooed on my shoulder as a reminder of the limitations of the human condition. JK, tattoos are fucking gross.

So, I guess, 2012 showed me that life is full of disappointments.  Tragedies happen, we lose things and people.  Relationships sour.  Inconvenient truths pop up.  We don’t mature at the same rate.  We all suck in one way or another.  We might all fuck each other over some day.  But 2012 also showed me that from disappointments come lessons, and sometimes even unexpectedly positive outcomes.  It’s helpful to see the big picture–that, to put it mildly, shit is just not going to be fucking peachy all the time–and to not hold that against anyone.  It’s helpful to remember that most of the time, the only person who can get you out of a shitty, miserable, or difficult situation is you.  Sometimes it’s absolutely tantamount to grow a giant set of balls.  If 2012 was a year of horrible events and people pushing me around and dictating my life, I’m going to bust my ass making sure that whatever happens in 2013 is all my own doing.

Toward that end, I’m not putting up with any more bullshit, not wasting time or money or effort or energy on things that are not worthwhile, and I’m just going to focus on getting shit done.  Get shit organized at work. Get my jaw fixed. Get into law school.  Get my house super landscaped. Unsubscribe from stupid feeds, readers, newsletters, bulletins, shopping clubs, magazines, and services that are a waste of brain matter.  Stay away from things and people that are puerile, nasty, stupid, and generally irritating. Throw out whatever concrete and figurative shit I have laying around that I don’t need. Declutter my life.

Though the above pro forma GSB rant must sound pretty negative, it’s not really coming from a place of negativity, but more from a place of calm.  It’s only possible to put up with shit for so long without snapping.  Instead of going apeshit, I’m just taking control of what I can take control of, and channeling that disappointment into productive, not destructive things.  Here’s to a calmer, happier, cleaner, and simpler 2013.