2009 In Review

[I wrote this up in late-December/early-January; just haven't had a chance to finish it up and post until now. Better late than never.]

About this time last year, i observed that 2008 had been a year of regrouping; time i needed to heal and start to rebuild. I proceeded to get off to a rough start in 2009 and crashed and burned due to an unfortunate development early in the year. However, that very incident enabled (forced) me to leave certain things in the past and move on with my life. Nothing like having closure rammed down your throat.

I can see now that the *real* healing started after that fire burned down. Without even realizing it at first, i started to seek out new building blocks and piece my life back together. (Maybe it sounds overdramatic, but i honestly feel that this is the best analogy.) After a time i found myself genuinely laughing again, enjoying activities, finding my zany side back and stronger than ever (which has been damn fun, i must say). I eventually noticed that i'd more or less stabalized to a happy & positive baseline. I'm not sure if i've ever achieved that before. Certainly not in college, and possibly not even during the "golden age" of ~2004-2007.

And let me be perfectly clear - i got to this point *before* i met the girl (late-October). I still disagree with those of you who insist "Stop looking, it'll find you". However, my experiences support the theory that you must be happy with yourself before you can be happy with someone else.

But of course the year was not all flowers and rainbows. The important strides in my personal and social life were offset with incomplete and failed goals, although i think i'm well on the plus side overall. It's incredibly difficult to adjust your attitude, so i'm giving myself a lot of credit on that front.

Personal stuff aside, the absolute worst of the year was losing my dear friend Tessa. She inspired me in life, and she continues to inspire me even though she's left this world. I've re-read some of our correspondence from the past few years and i've been reading through her blog, finding myself motivated to follow her example. I'm also borrowing a few of her words to form a mantra summing up what i aspire to: "Live deliberately." More on this when i get to my 2010 goal package. For now lets get to the lists for 2009:


The Good:

- Got over it and moved on with life.

- Built up my fledgeling solo acoustic project in secret just like i wanted to and got to the point of being able to go public with a youtube video.

- Continued reconnecting with old friends and strengthening ties, getting to know many of y'all better.

- Continued attending live shows; didn't make it to all of the concerts on my list (mostly due to travel and other priorities), but still averaged one great show per month, including several performances which were particularly spectacular (Opeth, MuteMath, Trivium).

- Made some important strides towards becoming the guy i've wanted to be for a long time now. It's still too early to celebrate, but i think the attitude and outlook are very close now.

- Much awesome travel: Long-awaited weekend trips to to visit friends in Portland and Kansas City, *two* trips back to Champaign-Urbana (lindy exchange in April, friends' wedding in October), and a nice loooong visit home to Michigan for the holidays. Also had the chance to host a few out-of-town friends for weekend visits out here; really enjoyed those too.

- Jen <3

- Continued junk reduction efforts, including:
- Donated/recycled a lot of old clothing, kitchenware, and other no-longer-used items.
- Switched most of my bills and bank statements to online delivery; now down to only one or two paper bills (which don't have the option for ebills).
- Established a 3-year record retention policy: Throw all bills, invoices, insurance junk, financial documents, etc, into a box labeled by year. After 3 years, introduce the entire box to my shredder.
- Shredded over 10 years worth of old documents. Not sure why it took me this long to realize that i don't need my bank statements from high school, phone bills from college, etc; good riddance.


The Bad:

- Did not maintain momentum with my guitar playing (kept going on-again off-again instead of a stable practice routine).

- Did not go hiking nearly enough.

- Still haven't gotten back into swing dancing. I did make it to the Champaign-Urbana Lindy Exchange and a half-day lindy workshop in Oakland, but both remained isolated incidents.

- Still eating out way too much and not preparing enough meals at home.

- Regressed into the bad habit of coming home and sitting around watching reruns of Friends or Family Guy or whatever. Managed to cut this back down by the end of the year, but most of summer and fall saw too many hours wasted in this manner.


The Ugly:

- Restarted my frakking workout routine (yes, again) and then stalled out yet again. This is really starting to piss me off; is it just a matter of discipline, or is my goal flawed? I thought i scoped it out in a rather achievable manner. Usually when i stall out it's due to circumstance (e.g. illness), but i don't think that's a valid excuse for not restarting as soon as the circumstance has passed. I'll have to give this some thought for 2010.


The Neutral:

- Splurged on a new tv. Shiny.

- Came to a balance with tv viewing, following only the shows i really care about plus about one netflix disc per week. This is good because i'm no longer missing out on friggin amazing programming such as Battlestar Galactica and Lost, but i still feel that i'm spending more time watching tv than i'd like. I've already cut out most of the dead weight (e.g. Heroes), but i think i want to reduce more.

...

I'm still working on my goal package for 2010 and i probably won't post it here. On one hand, being accountable to the whole internet might help with motivation, but it's quickly turning into a boring tasklist which i'd rather keep to myself. In general it's along the lines of keeping up the good, above, and doing something about the bad and ugly, and i have a few new items to add as well. Stay tuned.