Reflection or something..

A year ago, I celebrated the first moments of 2014 at a party in a new city, amidst (soon to be) new friends and tequila shots, with a kiss from my gay roommate as another friend puked in the sink next to us.

I really hate New Years resolutions.

You don't need the New Year as an excuse to change something in your life.  If you really want to change, you can do it on your own.

That being said, there is something kind of nice about ringing in the New Year with a goal.

So, I think my vague, unofficial New Years resolution for 2014 was, quite simply, to make it better than 2013.

In hindsight, I think I was being a little dramatic, but at the time, all I could think of was how much 2013 sucked.  Like.... royally sucked.

So, here I am, just hours away from 2015, reflecting on the past year. 

I hate to be cheesy but...........

2014 was great.

Amazing.

Maybe it was just about my mindset, maybe it was because I was determined to make it great, I don't really need a reason.  I'm just happy that it was the way it was.

Highlights:

• I discovered Asheville.  Sure, I had already lived there for a few months, but 2014 was when I really discovered the city.
• Similarly, I discovered yoga.  (I had done it off and on for years, but 2014 was when I really realized what it was all about for me..... thank goodness and namaste, y'all.)
• I was reunited with family members I hadn't seen in years.
• I made an unforgettable group of friends, the kind of friends that almost feel like family. You know who you are.
• I road-tripped up the east coast with a good pal from my semester abroad that I hadn't seen since 2012.
• I was able to return to Buck's Rock Camp in Connecticut and reunite with old friends, make new friends, foster some creativity, eat a lot of peanut butter bars, learn a little something about forgiveness and second chances, and feel inspired by the youth as well as my peers that surrounded me.
• I worked on my first theatre production since college and received a much needed reminder of why I once wanted to devote my life to it.
• I was able to make a whirlwind trip to Florida to see my beautiful cousin get married and visit with old friends and family.
• And I moved back home for a bit.  Some might not see it as a highlight, I certainly had my moments.  However, I was able to save money, reflect on life, make some plans, appreciate the beauty of Vermont, hang out with my dog, and most importantly nurture my relationship with two of the most important people in my life (Hi Mom and Dad).

So there you have it.  

A list of things that is entirely irrelevant to most of you.  So, I'm sorry if I wasted your time.

But, I'll leave you with a small piece of my vast, vast fortune of wisdom (do you sense the sarcasm?).

If you're determined to make 2015 great, it will be. 

But these things don't happen on their own.

Have a happy, safe, and healthy 2015.

And, as always, thank you for reading.

To give credit where credit is due...

I think that I can safely say that one of my favorite feelings in the world, is that of starting a new book.

I always feel very ambitious and adventurous when I open the cover, flip through the first, relatively purposeless pages, and find myself face to face with the beginning of a new story.

A clean slate.

Fresh.

Somewhat similarly, but also not similarly at all, is the way I feel about finishing a book.

I say "similarly," because I also love the feeling of finishing a book.

However, these two feelings are vastly different.

Upon finishing a good story, I often feel some mixture of overwhelmedness, accomplishment, grief, and closure.

Mere moments ago I had the... let's say "experience" of finishing Ken Kesey's 700+ page behemoth of a novel, Sometimes a Great Notion.

I could go on and on about the intricacies of this story, but will simply say that very few pieces of literature have evoked in me aforementioned mixture of overwhelmedness, accomplishment, grief, and closure with such utter force.

Still filled with the adrenaline that pumped through my body for the last 50 pages and while the spirit continues to move me, I would like to share, via Mr. Kesey, an anecdote that deserves acknowledgement; one that was particularly moving to me.

...About a guy I met in the nuthouse, a Mr. Siggs, a nervous, quick-featured self-schooled hick who had spent all his fifty or so years except for Service time in the eastern Oregon town of his birth. A reader of encyclopaedias, a memorizer of Milton, a writer of a column called "Words to Adjust By" in the Patients' Paper... a completely capable and sufficient person, yet this intense little self-styled scholar was perhaps the most uncomfortable man on the ward.  Siggs was terribly paranoid in crowds, equally hung up in one-to-one situations, and seemed to enjoy no ease at all except by himself inside a book.  And no one could have been more shocked than myself when he volunteered for the job as Ward Public Relations Director. "Masochism?" I asked him when I heard of his new position.  "What do you mean?" He fidgeted, hedging away from my eyes, but I went on. "I mean this Public Relations job... why are you taking on this business of dealing with big groups of people when you're apparently so much more at ease alone?"
  At this Mr. Siggs stopped fidgeting and looked at me; he had large, heavy-lidded eyes that could burn with sudden unblinking intensity. "Just before I came in here... I took a job, stock outrider. In a shack hid away outside Baker. A place a hundred miles from noplace. Nobody, nothing, far as I could see. Sweet, high country; beautiful... Not even a cedar tree. Took along complete set of Great Books.  All the classics, ten dollars a month, book salesman took it out of my wages in Baker. Beautiful country. See a thousand miles any direction, like it was all mine. A million stars, a million sage blossoms--all mine. Yes, beautiful... Couldn't make it, though. Committed myself a month and a half." His face softened and his blue star dimmed again beneath his half-closed lids; he grinned at me; I could see him forcing himself to try to relax. "Oh, you're right. Yes, you are: I am a loner, a born one. And someday I will make it--that shack, I mean. Yes. I will, you'll see. But not like last time. Not to hide. No. Next time I try it it will be first because I choose to, then because it is where I am most comfortable. Only sensible plan; sure of it. But... a fellow has to get so he can deal with these Public Relations, before he can truly make it. Make it like that... alone... in some shack. A man has to know he had a choice before he can enjoy what he chose. I know now. That a human has to make it with other humans... before he can make it with himself."
  I had a therapeutic addition to this: "And vice versa, Mr. Siggs: he has to make it with himself before branching out."
  He agreed, reluctantly, but he still agreed. Because at that time we both considered this addition pretty psychologically profound and--in spite of its chick-or-egg overtones--the very last word in "Words to Adjust By" at that time.
  Recently, however, I found that there were even further additions.  A few months ago I was sage-hen hunting in the Ochoco Mountains--high, spare, lonely plains country and certainly as far from noplace as any place I know--and I ran into Mr. Siggs again, a healthier, younger-looking Mr. Siggs, tanned, bearded, and calm as a lizard on a sunny stone.  After overcoming out mutual surprise, we recalled our conversation after his acceptance of the Public Relations job, and I asked how his plans had worked out. Perfectly--after some successful therapy he'd been discharged with honors over a year ago, had his outriding job, his Great Books, his shack... loved it. But didn't he still occasionally wonder if he were really choosing his shack or still just hiding in it? Nope. Wasn't he lonely? Nope. Well wasn't he bored, then with all this sunshine and adjustment? He shook his head. "After you get so you can make it with other people, and make it with yourself, there's still work to be done; you still have the main party to deal with..."
  "The 'main party'?" I asked, right then starting to suspect that statement about his being discharged "with honors." "What do you mean, Mr. Siggs?" The 'main party'? You mean deal with Nature? God?"
  "Yes, it could be," he remarked, rolling on his rock to warm his other side and closing his eyes against the sun. "Nature or God. Or it could be Time. Or Death. Or just the stars and the sage blossoms. Don't know yet..." He yawned, then raised his little head and fixed me once ore with that same intense look, a demented bright-blue look galvanized by some drive beneath his leathery face that sunshine--or therapy--could never adjust... "I am fifty-three," he said sharply. "Took fifty years, half a century, just to get to where I could deal with something my own size. Don't expect me to work this other thing out overnight. So long."
  The eyes closed and he seemed to sleep, a skinny back-country Buddha, on a hot rock miles from noplace. I walked on, back toward camp, trying to decide if he was saner or crazier than when I last saw him. 
  I decided he was.

(Sometimes a Great Notion, Ken Kesey, 1964)

Here, his words inspiring me to write a few of my own words for the first time in nearly two months.

Words are incredible.