2014 >

No resolutions this year. So much is up in the air. Firm goals make no sense.

I have left 2013 in much the same way that I entered it - by waiting. Then, it was on the hope of a job offer or something equally nebulous that might allow me to see Arden again. Now, I’m waiting for a courier to return my visa-stamped passport to me, so I can leave the country and stay in my partner’s arms indefinitely.

It’s different, though. I didn’t quite the poetry of ringing the new year in with my fiancé, but I did get the reassurance that it wouldn’t be long. And maybe that’s enough. Only a couple more weeks, rather than another year that feels like it’ll never end.

I have big hopes for next year. I want to finally put out my book, and I can see that happening by the end of spring. I want to find a job in the US, even though that might take some time. I’m excited for my wedding. But really, it’s the little facts of everyday life that I can’t wait for. I want to wake up next to someone in the morning. Arden and I can occupy the same space in total silence, each of us doing our own thing, and I find that more comforting than if I was doing the same alone. To have something like that every day, rather than a luxury I look forward to in a two-week stretch once a year, is something so wonderful that I’m still coming to terms with it.

I’m going to write more, even though I wrote a lot this year. I’m going to watch more movies. Consume and create. My hope is to come out at the end of this year a better person than when I went in, but it’d be nice not to suffer as much.

I don’t think I will.

Resolutions Retrospective: 2013

1. Finish Dystopolis. I did. Sort of. It’s in Arden’s hands, currently, and she’ll edit it soon enough. I’m planning to send it to Ele and Casey in turn after that, and by round three I’m hoping I’ll have something publishable. But I have a completed draft. Expect to see it next year.
2. Watch more films. I watched a hundred this year, which outshines the last by a lot. More on that in another post.
3. Read more. I’m not sure I did. I got through a few books, but finding the patience to sit down and lose myself for hours on end was sometimes hard. I have a big queue to get through, though.

And here’s where things trail off. I had three more, but they all concerned life after moving to the USA - not quite considering that, actually, things might take a little longer than I anticipated. 2013 has been a year about learning to wait - for petition approvals, for interview dates, and currently for my passport in the mail - and while there’ll be waiting in my future too, it’ll be of a different sort. I’ll arrive in the US, and have to apply and wait for my Employment Authorisation Document, and my permanent residence card, but I’ll be doing so while next to the person I love more than anything else.

The things I’ve learned this year, I couldn’t have predicted at the end of 2012. I’ve discovered how to be my own person. How to find a quiet moment, and not fill it with every unsolved anxiety lingering at the back of my head. I have watched Arden grow from afar this year, and begin a remarkable social trajectory, and because I’m three thousand miles away it’s been remote from my own development in almost every sense. This year, I learned not to resent or envy the beauty of the lives of others when my own is utterly unremarkable. This is a complex one - I always want to improve as a human being, to seek out new experiences, but I also want to be happy when life denies me those opportunities, especially when it’s for reasons that are complex.

Lots of quiet lessons. I became more socially confident, because my job demanded it - I can talk to people without mumbling, sustain eye contact, and integrate well as part of a team. (Now hire me.) I worked out when to contain my emotions for the sake of propriety, and when to speak out. There’s a self-awareness I’ve discovered, but the right kind - the kind that improves my ability to assess situations and act appropriately, rather than the kind that cripples.

2014 is going to be a strange one. But we’ll talk about that in the next post.

Resolutions 2013

1. Finish Dystopolis. For those new to this website, Dystopolis is a series of six short stories that I started writing in 2009. That should tell you how much of a fucking millstone it’s become around my neck, especially considering that as of now only the first few paragraphs of the first story are done. It’s not lack of interest, it’s not lack of ideas - I have plenty of both - but more to do with a big dollop of security and the fact that literature degrees make you constantly critically analyse every single word you utter. Now that the latter’s over and I’m not doing so awfully with the former, and there’s the clichéd symbol of renewal minutes away, now’s a good time to start. If you want to read more about this, have a look here.
2. Watch more films. This year was aggressively focused on video games, in part because I was catching up - I got a gaming laptop at the end of 2011, and have purchased over two hundred (largely with my student loan) since then. And they’re fun! Some are even really life-affirming and redefine what’s possible in a creative medium (most aren’t, but the knowledge that they could transcend the power of films and books if they really tried gives me shivers). Unfortunately, I kind of left films by the wayside - I got through a few this year, but not nearly enough. While I don’t think I’ll ever match Andrew or Sarah, but I want to reclaim it as a geeky obsession. I’ll be posting about them in the same vein as stuff like this.
3. Read more. As above. I’m very inventive with these, aren’t I?
4. Keep the momentum going when I get to the US. This is something I haven’t really given much thought to. Right now, Arden and I are planning for my emigration, which will take a while, and then there’ll be a period of a few months where I won’t legally be able to work and will be a little limited in terms of my capacity to get settled, but there’ll come a point when I will - and the idea of setting up my life in another country, even with all the financial and emotional safeguards in place, is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying. I only see this becoming a pressing concern in the latter half of the year, but it’s one that deserves some consideration. By the end of 2013, I will be in a drastically different environment.
5. Don’t leave a mess behind. My best friend’s going to miss me, even though he thinks that this is going to be good for me. My parents are more cautious - in part because they don’t know enough, and in part because so much of this - a wholly secular interpretation of marriage, and the potential for a relationship formed online - is alien to them, but they’ll miss me too. Regardless of their opinions, I want to leave behind a connection that’s as stable as possible. The last year’s big emotional points of tension have been external, but moving to another country is cause for strengthening bonds rather than testing them. We can grapple over ideological differences in the future; right now, a bitten tongue goes further than a loose one.
6. Get fitter. Shed everything I no longer use. Be a good husband. Keep improving my confidence around strangers, and be better to my friends. Keep an eye on the little things.

These get shorter each year, and I think that has to be a good thing. I might be growing up. I’m not sure yet.