Thursday, December 13, 2012

And I'm ready to suffer, and I'm ready to hope.

This last week has been a total roller coaster.  And while I'd love to go into specifics, since writing about things is sort of how I process and organize them and make sense of this big crazy world as best I can, pretty much everything going on is of a nature too private for blogging.  (I know this seems like a weird thing to say given that I've written several detailed posts about the state of my mental illness.  But there are some things even I won't broadcast to the open internet.  Plus those posts had the capacity to incite helpful discussion, where going on about my current state of affairs would really just be airing dirty laundry.)  Suffice to say I've hit some euphoric highs and some crushing lows, and it's all been sort of mentally exhausting, especially coupled with working retail at The Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

And all of that sort of got me thinking.  2012 has been a rough year.  I have this ridiculous apocalypse phobia – always have.  Since I was a kid I worried senselessly about seeing the End of Days and being crippled with fear as the skies go black and the seas boil.  (I was a melodramatic kid.)  So you can imagine how awesome all this Mayan calendar business has been for me.  And since I am also blessed with an advanced case of apophenia, every time some lunatic shoots up a public place or a massive hurricane devastates some place or someone starts making nuclear threats the shiny red CRAZY button in the back of my head gets hit. 

There's a point to this rambling, I promise.

Is the world ending?  Probably not.  But in a lot of ways, my personal world as I knew it ended in 2012.  I lost my father.  The end of my marriage was finalized.  Other little things along the way.  2012 was a year of (often painful) endings for me. 

So with that in mind, Ive decided to approach this "phoenix in the ashes" style and make 2013 a year of beginnings.  I've taken a few hits and been surprised at the fact that I was able to pick myself up and dust myself off.  But before my standard of living somehow gets stuck on survive, I want to take charge a little.  There are things I want to do.  There are things I need to do.

I've never been big on New Year's Resolutions.  There's no real reason for this; I'm not morally opposed to them or anything.  I just don't do them.  So this isn't a list of New Year's Resolutions.  This is just... a wish list of sorts, I guess.  But it's the kind of wish list where no one can really give you the gifts on it but yourself.

Tara's 2013 Wish List (in no particular order)

• I need to write more.  Since my father's death and the post I wrote for him, a lot of people have asked me "why aren't you a writer?"  The answer is simple and silly:  I have no idea how one becomes a writer.  But I'm going to write more and see if I can figure out some way to maybe claim I'm a professional at it.

• I need to move!  I'm too far from my family, and that needs to change.  This one involves a lot of work, but it's time to get to it.

• I have a web series to get off the ground!  This one terrifies me, as I know not the first thing about scripting, filming, or editing such a thing.  But I've got tons of support of which I shall endeavor to prove worthy.  First step is learn how to use this cool-looking camera I now own...

• I need to be a better daughter/sister/aunt.  Family, I love you.  I don't see you enough, or help you enough, or call enough.  You've all been there for me when I needed it and I can never really tell you how grateful I am to have you.  But I love you immensely and aim to be better at showing you that.

•••

There are more things, but it gets all weird and way too personal and detailed and it's mostly stuff the open internet wouldn't care too much about anyway.  The long and short of it is this:  2012 put a period on a lot of things for me.  I'm looking to make 2013 the start of the next chapter.

There's a particular Counting Crows song that I always tend to listen to a lot this time of year.  It suits the frozen melancholy of a New England winter really well, and in my most depressed of states it speaks to a certain wistful hope for a better future.  But it's also a bit passive.  So this year I'm going back to my girl Florence.  (You can never go wrong with Florence.  This is a great truth of my life.)  This song lifted me up during some of my darkest moments this year, so it seems a more fitting theme going forward:




It's also where the title of this post comes from. 

Whatever kind of 2012 you had, I wish you a successful, awesome, and scary in the best of ways 2013.  That's the kind of year I'm aiming to have.