Up, Up and Away

I’ve been meaning to write something about the New Year for, well, about two weeks now. I started a rough draft, and in my typical rambling fashion, it involved a lot of analogies and bubbles and frill about how far I’ve come since “this time last year”. The absolute truth is, I have, but I don’t shout this in a bragging fashion. I fell directly onto my face more times than I can recall in 2011. Well, the truth is, I can recall but I don’t think it’s necessary to rehash all my failed moments and shortcomings; after all, it is a new year. So let’s get down to the point of this all: yeah, it’s a new year, but I am not an entirely new person. I’ve grown and I’ve changed and I’ve learned, but I am still me. The same heart beats in my chest, the same thoughts run through my same brain and I am still stubborn as an angry old mule and hot-headed and vivacious and loud and funnier than most people I know. My hair has changed color, but I am not altogether that much different in regards to my soul.

I asked myself why I couldn’t start writing this two weeks ago. I talk to myself frequently and openly, with unabashed frankness and lack of embarrassment, for the few that don’t understand me yet. I just couldn’t put down lies. I feel that every word I typed out was stained with falseness. With manipulation and a fighting attempt to convince myself that everything was illuminated in my life, I know I could write down that I this year I rode in the rodeo or that I made a huge sum of cash knitting doilies for tables and no one would know the difference. I could say that my heart was light and my mind was clear and that I had discovered a way to stop interrupting and started eating only carrots. I could knit a tale that would astound. But…I didn’t. Truth is (and I think that’s the most important phrase that I could ever employ), sometimes I am still a mess.

It’s been a rough go so far this year, but not lacking in promises of a better future. Last year I learned how stubborn I can be, and how viciously my words cut. I made a truckload of bad decisions, intermixed with a lot of whiskey and cigarettes and sleepless nights. Maybe I should have tried harder, worked out more, gone to church and invested in a more reliable source of entertainment and distraction. Maybe I should have spent more time with friends and family and on bettering myself, but for whatever reason, most of those good things I could have done fell by the wayside.

I fell in love, and hell, that was the most unexpected adventure of 2011. It was like anticipating getting on the Ferris wheel and having a nice slow ride, and ending up strapped to a rollercoaster (upside down). A really fun, amazing rollercoaster that I would have never expected to end up loving. Does that work as an analogy, folks? Because it’s the best I could come up with. I’m not going to write a lot about this, because it wasn’t and isn’t some torrid affair, some cheap and tawdry adventure. It runs true and deep to this moment, and my hopes are high that at some point again this year, I’ll get to climb aboard again on that very same ride. You know who you are, and you’ll probably never read this, but you are close to my heart and always in my thoughts. I refuse to, and here’s my stubbornness making an appearance, believe that you are temporary.

I said hope, just a few seconds ago. Besides telling the truth about things, the other main focus this year has been on “hope”. Already it’s what I cling to and pray about and keep active in my being. To me, being hopeful is not being wishful. Being hopeful does not mean setting yourself up for failure or disappointment. Wishfulness is wistful and a flight of fancy that I don’t have time to include in my daily activities. Being wishful is hope minus effort. Being wishful is hoping things will change unexpectedly and for the better without any energy. Being wishful is a letdown. Instead I hope, and have hopefulness in everything. I have faith in my abilities and the abilities of others around me. I have starting building up my positivity, because if I don’t do anything else this year, I want to actually be a better me. It may sound cliché, but it’s very sincere on this end. I don’t just want to grow from mistakes, I want to expand my boundaries and challenge myself. My heart is open.

So hello 2012. So far, so good? I don’t think that’s entirely appropriate, but so far, so interesting, if I can coin a new phrase. I’ll cheers to waking up every day, the same crazy hair, a car that may need replacing but still chugs through like champ. Cheers to new beginnings and rekindling sparks and lives that will be intertwined this year. Here’s to the unexpected.