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| Pictured: Drunks and idiots carefully infiltrating adult society. |
It was a little weird having this very adult moment - people sitting around drinking nice wine out of expensive crystal while eating carefully prepared food. Of course, the moment was not exactly as it seemed. In between asking about where the wine was from or what spice or cooking method was used in what way, there was a lot of talk about dicks. So much dick talk. Probably asses, too, but who can keep it all straight anymore? I'm in no great hurry to brand myself an upstanding, responsible adult, but I think this is probably the apex of ascent to adulthood for myself and most of my friends. They're having children, which is alarming, because they're still doing things like wondering what would happen if one was to pee on particular things. God only knows they might even encourage their children to do it, since that's slightly more acceptable by society. So that's us, as adults - being mature enough to not piss on things ourselves.
2012 itself opened in the middle of difficulty for me and several people in my life. Thought it had been months since Kim and I had broken up, it still felt very fresh and raw. Navigating that through the year could be called "difficult", which is a ridiculous understatement. It's in the same vein as saying a blast furnace is somewhat uncomfortable to sit in. We both did our best to come through this still friends, but it was not easy at any given time.
A lot of my year really seemed to revolve around me getting my feet back under me and deciding what kind of life I was going to have in the aftermath. I put a lot of work into my job at Cornerstone, and I picked up a lot more work with AEG for the purpose of just getting back into the grind of writing constantly. I may have gone too far in that direction, as I realize looking back I shed a lot of my recreational pursuits so that I could work on various projects almost nonstop. Although I enjoy the work I do most of the time (at both jobs), it gets to be a little stressful when everything is an endless series of tasks you handle one at a time while looking at the infinite row beyond the current one.
I think it helped, though. Sometimes you just have to try things and see if they fit, and in this case I don't think it did. But by doing so, I learned to be a lot more confident in what I do and confident about who I am. 2012 was, for the most part, an unsteady walk through unmarked territory. Not a fight, but just an ongoing moment where I kept wondering if I should just turn back.
Overall, it felt like a long year for a lot of people. Not necessarily a bad one, but one where things just kept going on. Change, loss, gain, new directions, new information, different choices, and so on. The year just constantly slapped you in the face, saying, "Nothing sticks around forever, and apparently few things stick around for very long at all, buddy."
One of my most annoying habits - my inability to detach myself from particular moments in time or memories - seemed to come full circle. The feeling that I was always just a short step from going back to any given point in my life, any given friendship, or any given period of opportunity... that seemed to fade pretty quickly this year. Maybe it was when I went back to KC and it felt like I just didn't have the chance to see people. When I went to Jake's wedding and realized some people do just fade out of your life. Maybe it was kicking and fighting most of the year to help keep the office open.
I do have a few goals for the year. I need to get back in the habit of journaling more. I'm going to want to look back and remember things one day, and I'd hate to have so little context for my own life. I need to make sure I make the most of my time but I stop running full speed all the time. I want to really fight to get certain goals accomplished this year, but I need to remember how to just relax and actually catch a damn break more often. I sit around too much thinking "what should I be doing what should I be doing what should I be doing..." and it just brings too much stress. I went ahead and opened up several of my MMO accounts and got a shit ton of Steam games to try and get back to it, but we'll see. Whenever a show says they're "getting back to basics", it's like a death knell, because all they're saying is "we have nothing new to offer, nothing creative, so we're just going to try and retread old shit everyone seemed to like." So hopefully I'm not just getting back to basics, but pushing forward, too. I never really figured out what I was going to do with my life, and I think that's starting to be a problem since I'm still living it.
Or maybe I'm just rambling and no one else will get this.
I think I'll go home and mull this over, before I cram it down my throat
At long last it's crashed, its colossal mass has broken up into bits in my moat.
Lift the mattress off the floor, walk the cramps off, go meander in the cold.
Hail to your dark skin, hiding the fact you're dead again.
Underneath the power lines seeking shade.
Far above our heads are the icy heights that contain all reason
It's a luscious mix of words and tricks that let us bet when you know we should fold
On rocks I dreamt of where we'd stepped, and of the whole mess of roads we're now on.
Hold your glass up, hold it in
Never betray the way you've always known it is
One day I'll be wondering how I got so old just wondering how.
I never got cold wearing nothing in the snow.
This is way beyond my remote concern of being condescending
All these squawking birds won't quit building nothing, laying bricks.
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