The Slice

I clean for three different reasons these days:

1. I'm getting ready for something;
2. I'm generally maintaining my place; or
3. I'm avoiding thinking about/doing something else.

At least I feel accomplished after finishing with my cleaning if doing so for the first two reasons. You know, "Hey, I set out what I wanted to do, and I did it. Looks nice in here," etc. Unfortunately, I was laboring under the last reason tonight, and that mostly ends up with, "Oh, it's cleaner in here, I guess. Still have my problem, though." Oh well.

It'll be okay. I'll miss you though.

Hey, all. I wanted to post to let you know I haven't been ignoring you... Okay, I'm lying this time. Sorry. The last six days have been filled to the brim, and I didn't bother getting online much at all. This is mostly a placeholder to remind myself to come back and post about it sometime. I would now, but I'm pretty tired and in the midst of doing laundry and getting ready for another week.

(Also, I may be moping slightly because it went really well; I don't want to return to reality; and saying goodbye pretty much sucked.)

Oh well. Suck it up, self. It's all good. I hope I haven't missed anything fantastic and/or horrifying. If I have, feel free to slap me upside the head with it. Otherwise, I'll try to catch up with everything soon. Hope you're all doing fab too.

This is crazy. No doubt.

But...

It's my kind of crazy.

XO.

Start the year with a gigantic smile on your face.
Laugh.
Feel good for once in this miserable mishmash of puzzle pieces that barely fit together if at all.
No one's going to come out and say that it'll be fine and actually know it, actually mean it in a way that's 100% verifiable, but hope against your own tired senses and sneaking suspicions and believe in something anyway.
There's no time to be so bruised and let down (though you will be); there's no time to shatter yourself into a thousand fantastical shards and miraculously smash them back together (though somehow it will happen anyway).
With all these sparks of idealism, you can shoot from the rooftops even if most of it is misplaced and hard to recognize under the thick veneer of supposed realism and self-doubt.
Flash against the overwhelming night rather than fizzling out against your own mediocrity.
We have insecurities to spare-- small horrible memories, cracks in that perfect shimmering surface, "You don't know me all that well"s slipped between little pockets of the purest kind of face-to-face dreams and wishes and silly desires we don't think can come true (but secretly want to anyway).
Underneath, there it is all broken and battered but also holding the various strands in a web that's just tight enough, woven so fine yet strong enough to carry our weight from one disaster to the next.
If nothing else, just try-- try, try with everything and even more, the places you don't know and the people you're not sure of, the feelings you shoved into a dingy traveling case long ago with only a cheap lock to keep them safe.
If this isn't want you wanted, stand up and change direction.
If that doesn't turn out well, understand it's never too late to start again in some capacity, even if certain doors are forever closed due to past mistakes and ill-dealings.
Accept and move on, forward, maybe diagonally if necessary, but never back.
No one can truly predict what will happen, so go forth and do what you're going to do, live the life you're going to live, be the person you're going to be.
No one else is going to get it right either.
Find some measure of comfort in that.

I wish I had some unifying message, some overarching "above all things" conclusion to impart, but I don't. I don't really believe in resolutions or looking back on the year once January hits. I've been saying the same thing for months ("It's (insert month) now? What the heck happened to (insert previous month)?"), and I can barely comprehend the significance of the past two years, much less the change that has happened since then. I'm just... really glad I made it to this point, and I'm not sorry to see it go. I'm more myself than I've ever been, if that makes any sense at all. I have a lot to be grateful for and lots of things to look forward to in the coming year, even if I'm not quite sure how it will shake out. I'm trying to keep myself grounded and pragmatic and within shooting distance of reality, but it's hard to plan for everything. We shouldn't want to anyway.

Still, I hope wonderful things happen and that these aren't empty words. The world has enough disingenuity to go around, I think. That all remains to be seen, but what's life without a molotov cocktail or two? What's happiness without a seedy underbelly to define it? Not very exciting at all.

Be well in 2012, friends. Much love.

I keep wanting to start this sentence with "honestly," and any sentence that starts that way is going to end badly. I refuse to do it. No sir.

I'll just say that tomorrow will be better because it won't be today.

There. Done. Go to bed.

You want to explain what that little outburst was about?

No. I'm over it now. It wasn't anything. I shouldn't have even mentioned it.

EDIT (11:00 p.m., next day): It's probably a good thing that livejournal is being stupid right now. I could be posting a whole slew of ill-advised things, but I'm pretty sure they'd get eaten in one way or another, which is why I'm editing this instead of playing Russian Roulette with a new entry. That's more frustration I don't need at the moment. Fewer people see it this way too. So it goes. I'm exhausted, and lots of things are coming to a close while other things are just beginning. I've made it further in the last 12 months than I knew I was capable of. Still, I don't know where I'm going or when I'll get there or if this even matters in the first place. Maybe it's just life's way of telling me I need to take a break from this. I'm okay with that. For now, at least. We'll see how long that lasts.

At one point today, I said to myself, "Man, that was the worst day I've ever had."

Then I looked at the clock and realized I had two hours of work left.

BAH! Let's do it again tomorrow!

All right, seriously now. Random motorists need to stop yelling out of their car windows at me when I'm walking down the street, especially when I'm on break in front of the capitol. I'm minding my own business, taking a few minutes away from being in front of a stack of paper and computer screen for ten hours a day. I don't mind that, but it's nice to enjoy the sun and fresh air for a little bit. You don't need to be hollering, "Stop staring!" or, "Matrix!" or whatever other nonsense you can think of to jar me out of that. It's not cool.

But the whistling? Yeah, that's okay. Thanks.

EDIT: Oh, and something about talking like a pirate?

AFTERTHOUGHT: And if you're yelling at me because you know me, that's just rude because you should just come talk to me in person instead. I promise I won't bite you (unless I have a reason). ;)

If you ever still wonder, the answer is yes.

Always.

Okay, something not so introspective--

I pulled on a random t-shirt to go walking after work. I caught a glimpse of what it said in the mirror as I headed out.

"Class of 2001!"

This shirt is over ten years old. Good lord.