2013

Never fear, loyal readers (both of you)! All is well.  I know that often a big gap on the blog indicates a major disaster but this time it was just a case of a steady routine which didn't allow for much time for reflection.  But now I have a few minutes and have been meaning to say a few words at the year of 2012 which is finally laid to rest.

2012 started out with the pain of job loss still fresh in my mind and the hope for a new job still tangible and real.  2012 started out with me as a teacher.  And even as late as June or July, if you had told me I would have walked away from my previous career by year's end I would not have believed it.  Things really did happen that fast.  And now, as if cresting a hill, or going around a corner, that part of my life is no longer visible at all in the rearview mirror.

And where do I find myself?  In a good place.  Still a transition place, but I'm embracing that now. Finally.  Because at last I'm in a transition that is looking forward rather than looking back.  I posted a while back about the painful process of becoming something new.  I said that once you make the decision to change something fundamental about yourself, you are a dead man walking, because the new you hasn't been formed yet, and the old you is terminal.  Well, I can finally look at myself and say that the old me is dead, and not say it with bitterness or drama or even sadness.  Because the new me is forming, taking shape, and I can live there now.  The new me also still has a lot of unanswered questions, but that also means a lot of mystery and possibilities.  Odds are, 2014 will ring in without much change for me...but I think that by the end of 2014 I will see amazing changes and things happening, and this time it will be on my terms.  So this year is a year of consolidation, preparation, and continuing to grow and learn.

I still have some personal demons to work through, undoubtedly.  I talk about the past receding in the mirror, but the truth is, I haven't been looking in that mirror.  I avoided it for a long time, which is fine if you're making a beeline out of town.  But you can't drive safely without using those mirrors.  So I'm going to have to start looking back, not out of wistfulness or nostalgia, but because we can't move forward without having some knowledge of where we came from.  I am a new person, independent of my past and yet still a product of my experiences.  Riverside sings "With open arms I'm standing out against my past" and I needed to do that for a while.  But even the protagonist of their Reality Dream Trilogy eventually realized the need to incorporate that past self into the new present.  I'm feeling very close to being able to let the past back in, without it being a source of pain.

So.  Onward to 2013.  God bless all of you in the coming year, and thanks for reading!

Matt