2012: Retrospective

I’ve been sitting on a three+ page retrospective of 2012, pretty similar to any other I’ve made in the past. But it didn’t quite feel right. I think it’s because the focus of 2013 is going to be simplification, reprioritization and moving on. And to that purpose my typical lengthy ranting seems inappropriate. So that old post is staying in drafts and instead I’m uploading this highly simplified version.

2012: IT SUCKED. I LEARNED SOME STUFF.

1) YOUR PROBLEMS ARE YOUR PROBLEMS.
2) GOOD THINGS AND BAD THINGS DO NOT CANCEL EACH OTHER OUT.
3) PROBLEMS DO NOT GO AWAY.
4) PROBLEMS CHANGE. SO DO PRIORITIES.

One thing that makes a retrospective difficult, is I haven’t been taking pictures or posting online as I used to. And the reason for that is for a long time I haven’t cared about anything enough to record it.

SO WHAT HAPPENED IN 2012

• I began to tolerate one job much more while the other became far more unbearable and tenuous. Both are feeling kind of stagnant currently.
• I was in a traffic accident that I walked away from but left my beloved car murdered.
• Got to visit friends in Oregon.
• Met friends from twitter (Bob Shea! Heather! Mr. Bob! I ALMOST met my friend from Kuwait!)
• Started making some fun art and flannel boards for storytimes.
• Began a monthly Bad Movie Night.
• Canceled a monthly Bad Movie Night when people stopped coming.
• Started a monthly Twitter movie night called #moviepants
• Became baffled when people wanted to join #moviepants instead unfollowing me.
• I started school again. Kind of.
• I moved my sister to Utah.
• I got a pretty sweet new phone.

OKAY SO WHAT ABOUT NEXT YEAR

2012 has felt like an odd sort of transition year. But I did learn a lot. For instance, after I started tracking my spending, I learned I was losing money every month. So, after moving my sister out, I moved back in with my parents. I will be murdering my debt. Credit card should be paid off by April. Depending on how long I stay at home, my car could be paid off by the end of the year.

Of course, consolidating my life from an entire tiny house to my old, tiny room isn’t entirely pleasant or possible. But it ties in nicely with my continued quest to simplify my life. Everything I own is now in a 8×5 storage unit or my bedroom. And the bedroom is barely large enough to fit my bed, a bookshelf and my tv. I’m forced to change my priorities.

• School.
• Health.
• Writing.
• Money.
• Getting out of the house.

Those are my main goals for 2013. All my (local) friends seem to either be moving away or are becoming otherwise occupied, so this is as good a time as any to begin a temporary hermitage. So what happens after April? No clue! I’m leaving all expectations behind. Hopefully I can start taking some goals out of storage at the very least. I’d definitely like to start taking pictures again, but I won’t feel guilty if I don’t. If I can’t take care of those five tasks then I can feel guilty. 2013 I want to get back on track. 2014 I want to make some serious progress to how I feel I should be living. Everything should be in place by 2015- years that are multiples of five have been good to me.

I think I’ll save my specific plans for 2013 for another post. I’ll wrap things up with this heartfelt message.

2012: You are dead to me. 2013: I WILL CRUSH YOU BENEATH MY HEEL. YOU WILL WEEP FOR THE MEMORY OF THE SENSATION OF PAIN, FOR PAIN WILL BECOME YOUR EVERY MOMENT. WHEN 2014 ARRIVES TO REPLACE YOU, YOU WILL THANK ME AS I PUSH THE REMNANTS OF YOUR PITIFUL SOUL INTO THE PITS OF HELL. YOUR DISCARDED CORPSE WILL SERVE AS A WARNING TO YEARS TO COME THAT I AM NOT SCREWING AROUND ANYMORE.

You have been warned, 2013.

P.S. I wanted to make a special note of the most special thing to happen in 2012- my discovery of the table flipping emoticon! But this crappy work computer doesn’t have all the characters to make it. I’m so angry I…I want to flip a table! …but can’t because, again, this computer lacks the character set.