spark

I do it every year.  I fixate on the 31st of December once that page is flipped over on the calendar all month, telling myself that next year will be different.  If I can just get it all out of my system in the weeks and days leading up to the end of the month...almost force myself to hate all that is holding me down, or what I perceive is holding me down...and purge it from my life in time for the countdown to midnight, everything will turn around.  New Year's resolutions, for me, are like a yearly personal 10 Commandments of desired self improvement. But with lines and stuff.  Ultimately, however, it results in near-immediate failure, and sets a sour tone for the rest of the Winter...if I'm lucky.

I know its just another day like today is just another day, and not, as many have been led to contemplate, the end of the world.  a clean slate. December 31st offers me a day to reflect.  I used to celebrate with family and friends.  It was fun.  Then the hangovers got to be more and more epic, and the fun less and less so.  The first New Years Eve I spent on my own, I caught Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring in a near empty theatre.  It became tradition the following two years.  I was partied out.  Instead of spending the night in a quest for dizzying entertainment, I allowed the myth of the new year to invigorate my desire for change.  I do it every month too...those fresh boxes on the calender always look so conquerable, but mere days in, and I'm losing yet another mini-war with myself...but that change of that last number really seems to scream clean slate.  I crave a clean slate/.

This year is no different.  Its been a bad year, plain and simple.  I've got positives to take away from it, no doubt.  I've maintained a friendship with someone who is very important to me who I thought might be out of my life by now.  I've climbed up another rung on the family   tree ladder, where I'm at least starting to feel like an adult when I'm in the same room as my parents.  My financial situation is pretty bleak...but I give myself a lot of credit for not letting it get completely out of hand.  I've plugged a few holes and done without for long stretches this year in order to keep costs down.  I'm not proud of the year I've had by any means...my health is the worst its maybe ever been...but all in all, if this is bottom, I'll take it.  I certainly hope that's not me asking for more trouble...I really don't think that's the case...but I do seem to have a bit of an unlucky air about myself over the past decade or so, so its not totally out of the question.  Determined isn't the right word...far too strong for someone in my shoes.  Hopeful.  I'm hopeful.  I am.  Not full of hope.  I wish!  No, I'm not in a great state of mind these days, but I can't say the flame isn't flickering...and for a while there, it felt like maybe I'd gone out.