2009

As you can tell by the time stamp, I am still awake on this day one of the year 2009. I am still functioning mainly through the overuse of coke (the drink, you silly people!) and great music (everything from Elton John to Alison Krauss to U2 to Richard Marx to Little Big Town to Nickelback...you get the idea.) and a funny fanfiction that's keeping me in stitches. It's not a wild party, but then, wild parties aren't exactly my style. I'm more the stay-in-and-watch-movies-and-listen-to-great-music kind of girl. 

I actually kind of hate this holiday sometimes. It enforces such a sense of nostalgia mixed with a healthy dose of self-evaluation on everyone that isn't merely intent on getting drunk and setting off fireworks that wakes the elderly couple down the road, causing them to call the police who then proceed to rudely throw your butt into jail so that you can join their Bums' Hall of Holiday Fame. I know that I go over the past year endlessly, and I imagine the rest of the world isn't much different. What you did wrong in the past year, what you did right, usually tempered with a vague sense that "this is gonna be YOUR year" like you own the rights to it or something. 

I guess New Years has also always been overshadowed by my birthday, too. New Years has just never been that big a deal to me. It usually meant attempting to stay up until midnight, failing and then shrugging my shoulders and making resolutions that I had every intention of keeping, which succeeded for, at best, a week until I failed and then went right back in to the bad habits that I'd hoped a new year would magically correct.

This is probably been the first time I've ever been actually sad to see a year go. 2008 wasn't perfect, but what year ever is? And I can honestly say that this past year has been one of the happiest of my recollection. There have been mistakes that I've made, and I don't mind admitting it. There have been friendships I wish I'd worked harder on, secrets that I shouldn't have told, stupid crushes that I should have avoided, tests I should have studied harder for, stories I should have written, ect. But I think I've learned the secret--I can't be sorry for those regrets, because I think I've learned from them. How can I ever be sorry for any pain that brought me to the place I am now? That's what I had to learn about my parents' divorce this year. Sure, it was hell. It was hell of a kind that no one should ever have to face, ever. But I wouldn't be who I am today if I hadn't gone through it. I don't think that I would have ever developed any paltry depth to my character that I now possess without having gone through hell and back with no Virgil to guide me. But even that's not completely true. I had God. Virgil was sometimes a rather insensitive bloke, after all. God always knew. He always understood. I don't know how atheists do it, personally.

But in 2008, I found myself again. With the help of my friends and family and, most importantly, God, I felt like I finally stopped stumbling around in a dark room and rediscovered Light in all of its realities. And it's so beautiful. I accept the fact that I'm going to be dealing with the remnants of suffering for the rest of my life. I'm never going to escape it. But that's okay. Jesus has scars, too. I had the greatest moment of catharsis the other day when one of my new, and dearest, friends told me that she couldn't imagine me ever being depressed. I literally started crying. Imagine God healing me that much, that Courtney could see me as I am now and be unable to see me as I was even a year and a half ago! It was blessing and miraculous. I realize that that sounds melodramatic, but it's no less the truth.

Life is so open right now, and so many people are missing it. They're too busy waiting for an ideal to appear, like the perfect mate or job or whatever, and they're hanging everything on that. I refuse to waste my life in longing. Hence come my--duh, duh, duh!--resolutions.

1.) In 2009, I'm going to make myself happy. True happiness, I think, isn't a bright, sparkling joy. You can't experience that constantly. It's too tiring, and it will fade away. Happiness is contentment, feeling at peace with whatever circumstance you find yourself in. As long as I am happy with who I am in Christ, and am listening to God's will, what does the future matter? What does it matter that I'm single or I don't have the perfect job or whatever else the flavor of the month might be? Contentment can be found in doing the best I can in whatever I happen to be doing, and let the rest go hang.

2.) I'm going to get straight A's this year. My record for 2008 was, regrettably, marred by one B. Curse Dr. Carr's Introduction to Business Finance class! I'm so close to graduating summa cum laude, and I'm  vain enough to want it just so I can say that I graduated summa cum laude. Laudable, I know, but I never professed to be a saint. I also know that this is the stepping stone to a good graduate school. I'd like to be able to hand them a transcript with only the three B's I now hold. I may not have graduated from high school with the highest scores, but I want those admission guys to see that I'm capable of running with the big dogs.

3.) I'm going to continue to make myself healthy. I only have twenty more pounds to go until I reach my goal weight (yay the fifty pounds that are gone!) and I really want to get back into dance. I miss dancing. It's joy in one of its purest forms.

4.) I'm going to refocus on my music. I'll be joining the choir at my church at some point in January, and I'm going to make an effort to reawaken whatever piano skill is currently sleeping in my toes. It may take some convincing to get back into my fingers, but that's what happens when you neglect a talent!

5.) I'm going to work on managing my money. God forbid that I should have anything saved, not to mention the fact that in a year and six months, I plan to be writing you all from a pub in Ireland. That aine gonna be cheap, my lads, so it's best that I be savin' me wee arse off. Begorrah, but I can' hardly wait!

These are all resolutions that I can build up to, and quite easily. Nothing has to happen overnight. That's what people try to do far too often with these things, I think. They believe that change comes through osmosis, without realizing that self improvement is a gradual thing. It's like spring. The grass doesn't turn green all at once, does it? Life is in everything, but you don't see signs of it until much later. Then the rewards are shown and everybody ooohs and awws like simpletons. 

Oh, I forgot. My last resolution is to be with you people through this blog as often as I can. It occurred to me the other day that this blog is like a scrapbook of my life. It's a written time capsule. I can't ignore anything as important as that, now, can I? Besides, then my mom will stop looking at me so mournfully. Love you, Mom!

Happy New Years, my friends and family and unknown strangers across the globe. May it be filled with light, promise, and the faith that the renewal of the year always brings. May 2009 be filled with happiness and growth.