2010...

Ahhh. The New Year. Symbolic of new hope, and refreshed potential. A blank slate to be chiseled anew. The time when we discard old habits and ways and prepare to make resolutions, life promises, and take a new direction in life. This new year approaches with me feeling somewhat sad and a tinge of regret. 2009 brought me both great success and painful loss. So for 2010, the beginning of a new decade, I am expanding on my assertion from last year. I am not making any life-altering resolutions, that are going to be broken by the time February rolls around. Instead I'm taking the lessons I've learned from 2009, and carrying them forward, in a positive way into the next year. But what have I learned from the year that has passed?

I had started off 2009 in a very bullish mood. No longer was I gonna let my head hang low. The year was mine, and I was gonna live it up to fullest. Nothing was gonna hold me back. Well, that kinda drive is all well and good, if you have some kind of direction to steer it. I had none. Not one. I just knew 2009 was not gonna be like 2008 where I spent most of the year pining for a relationship that had ended the previous year, and pushing a stupid war with a life-long friend. To use the cliche, 2009 was going to be mine. I was off to a bad start.

I became benignly arrogant (if there is such a thing). I wouldn't listen to anyone. I made stupid decisions and then tried to justify them. I bought a high horse on sale and then jumped on it continuously (metaphorically speaking) as though I was some all-knowing sage. I stopped opening up to and consulting with my then girlfriend, figuring it was my decision and she would have to just accept it. I missed landmark moments in her life, and didn't even think twice about it. To quote a good friend, I formed the ass. Royally. And all this occurred before June even hit.

June came, and I started studying for my SAP consultancy certification. This was a big deal to me. See, I never finished college. I have one year left to get my International Studies degree. As it stands, I'm one of only 2 members of this generation of my family to not have their degree. I take that very personally. For all the natural talent that I have always been told I have, I have nothing to show for it. So I took passing my SAP exams very personally. I threw myself into studying at the expense of everything else. My sleeping patterns still haven't re-adjusted. I now get up religiously at 4:45 on a weekday. I am in work by 6 am, at the latest. Conversely, do not call me before midday on a weekend. You will get cussed out. I also found time to start this blog strangely enough, on the recommendation of a new friend, the Spotless Cussbud (she has quickly grown in stature to the level of treasured friend). I honestly believe it is one of my saving graces right now.

July rolled and my birthday came with it. It also brought the lowest point in my life to date. They say retrospect comes with 20/20 vision. Whoever "they" are, they did not lie. I hung out with my ex from a previous relationship. I had never dealt with my emotions from that relationship, so of course they flared up. I even posted about the experience. I was shook. I then proceeded to do the single, cruelest, most thoughtless, most classless thing I have ever done. I broke up with my girlfriend. On the day after my birthday. After she had taken me out to the most beautiful dinner I have ever gone too the night before. While in bed, after we had slept together.

(This deserves its own paragraph in parentheses. This is why, more than anything else, I am not even 75% sure I deserve another chance. When reality and sanity finally took back hold of me, and I looked at what I did, I wanted to puke. It was beyond low. None of my friends even know that is how we broke up. Why? I'm too ashamed of myself. If there is one moment in my life, I pray to God I could take back, that was it. Once again, I am so sorry for what I did, Googs. Everyone feel free to call me a prick/c*nt/asshole. I'm still doing it.)

I focused almost exclusively on my studying for August. I missed my now ex's concert, after I told her I would make it for sure. Why? Cuz I forgot. I only remembered when I saw the pics on Facebook. And I didn't call to apologise either. In my mind, she should have called to remind me. (I am telling you, I turned into an asshole this year. All I needed was my picture next to the dictionary definition.) Then, to paraphrase Kanye, it all fell down.

Since the end of August, I have suffered one misfortune after another. My PC, which was my pride and joy, got fried when my room flooded out while I was out at my friend's bachelor party. I got hit with a 2 year old bill which cost me $2000. I was using a friend's car to go to work, when a tire blew out. Total cost of repair: $1700 (Thank God the rim wasn't damaged. She has chrome rims...). I did not pass the second module of my SAP exams. Total cost to re-take: you really don't wanna know (it's in US). I had practically drained my savings in a month and a half period of time. And then this happened. Karma can be a bitch, and she was paying me back in spades. I was reeling. But a funny thing has happened since then.

I wanted to hang my head low. Hell, I did for awhile. But I have some of the best friends in the world. They refused to let me do it. One in particular kept yelling at me (literally) to raise my head and keep it up. And since then, I have been taking time to find myself again, to get back to the habits and values that made me the person I was, not the person I became this year. I have been slowly dealing with all the issues I never dealt with. I have closed the book on one relationship, and have been writing the epilogue on another. I have been finding out about my father, and the kind of person he was. I have been slowly assuming more responsibility and leadership in my house. I have even made a promise to myself to start back going to church, and to go to the gym. It's slow and painful work, but I'm committed to it.

The results have been steady. I am more confident in myself. I am able to better process those downtimes that we all go through. I don't freak out at the first sign of adversity, or emotional upheaval. I am working on being a better friend. I am able to look at my ex with her new boyfriend, and accept the fact that she has moved on. Most importantly, I am not trying to make an overnight change. I am taking the small steps needed, to make permanent change. I am working on my attitude, because the Chad Hall that ran riot in 2009, was an impostor. I took him, and his high horse, out behind the proverbial woodshed, and I did not just beat their asses (American metaphor). I shot them. I plan to take the momentum I have been carrying out of 2009, and into 2010 and beyond. That is my resolution. And not just for next year, but for the rest of my life.