Saturday, December 31, 2011

Happy New Year! (Picture #290: I'm not ready yet.)

I'm not ready for 2012, yet.

2011 was quite the year: dictators and terrorists died and fell, the geo-political landscape has changed drastically, celebrities did stuff, gay civil rights advanced and the economy actually has been slowly crawling back from the brink, despite most people's best efforts to ignore it because they were busy being "disillusioned" with Obama.

Things of great pith and moment happened this past year. But not for me.

This is not to say nothing fun or exciting happened last year. My romantic life took a major turn for the better. My social calendar was filled with fun and quirky things. I reconnected with my estranged father after a 20-year silence, not in any substantial or particularly fulfilling way, but it provided some measure of closure (as well as opening up new issues).

But in terms of moving my life forward, achieving goals I've set for myself or facing my own personal demons, 2011 was one big holding pattern for me. My own doing, I'm afraid. I've been hiding from dealing with the repercussions of bad decisions I made in 2010 and rather than dealing with my problems head-on, I've danced around them. Literally (started taking ballroom dancing classes in 2011).

And thus, I don't feel as though I'm ready for 2011 to end, as I haven't really accomplished what I set out to do for the year. It's sort of the same reason I'm a night owl - I put off going to sleep because I have the sense that I haven't finished all my appointed tasks for the day. So I end 2011 with some feeling of disquiet.

On the other hand, our society has come up with a handy little reset button known as "New Year's Resolutions." Convenient. Sort of a Yom Kippur for everyone. We can wipe our personal slates clean and head into the new year with a renewed sense of hope and vigor.

And as soon as I'm done being sick, I'll get right on that...

P.S. With Obama's signing of the Indefinite Detention Bill, I'm thinking of joining the ranks of the disillusioned...