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.
Watch more films. I watched a hundred this year, which outshines the last by a lot. More on that in another post.
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.