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12-31-08 // 8:10 pm auld lang syne For years, the prospect of loneliness on New Year's Eve, of not having someone, anyone, to kiss at the stroke of midnight -- that was enough to throw me into a depressive funk. Anymore, especially this year, not only am I OK with being alone on New Year's, I'm actually savoring it. Don't get me wrong, if my circle of friends was gathering for a kicking party, I'd be there in a flash. But everyone seems pretty low-key and scattered this year, which is fair enough. I had chances to go out tonight. Dear Future is playing at Cicero's, along with three or so other bands, and I guarantee it'll be a barnburner. Hell, my editor even reminded me to come on out. But I didn't feel like dealing with a taxi to the Loop and back home, the nutso crowds, and paying $30 to get in, even if it did include free champagne, and maybe even an open bar of some sort. A few folks invited me along to their own small family-type gatherings, which was very thoughtful and kind. And if I really had to have something to do tonight, I could easily have made a phone call or posted something on Facebook and scared it up. Which is a different situtation entirely than what I'm used to, that sort of clutching at straws for activity. This year I'm not-so-secretly thrilled with my solitude! A few hours ago I made a noble attempt to head out for a bit -- I wanted a simple combination, pinball and a pint. I put on my gloves and wrapped my scarf around my neck and walked the mile or so down to the Black Thorn. And it was closed! I wandered a block down and two more over to CBGB. Surely it, in all its grotty glory, would be open and more than willing to provide me with what I craved. But no, it was shut down, too! On New Year's Eve! I clearly didn't get the memo. So I shivered, shook my head in disbelief, and trekked home. Which is where I will stay for the remaining hours of 2008. Nobody can say I didn't try. So I've chopped up and prepared the ingredients for a killer stir fry: okra, string beans, pea pods, oyster mushrooms, fresh garlic, yellow onion, and extra-firm tofu. I'm well stocked with Belgian and British beers. Tunes are filling my apartment, and I have five newly-purchased seasons of the Simpsons on DVD. If that doesn't sound like a damn fine way to celebrate a hell of a year, I don't know what is. 2007 was a strange year. By mid-year, it felt like my life was massively fucked and I couldn't do a damn thing right. Somehow I righted the ship, and the last quarter of the year was a renaissance. It ended on a hell of a note, despite having my tire stolen on New Year's Eve morning and my house inhabited by idiot lodgers invited by my then-girlfriend, who frankly didn't like them either but couldn't say no, and felt bound by some sort of old bond that wasn't there anymore. 2008 was a bit of the opposite, then. It started out well and slid downward as the winter wore off and spring arrived. May and June were hellacious, I became an afterthought, a stranger in my own home, a prisoner of geography. I'd been abandoned, and felt like I'd been duped. However, I found the inner strength to do what was right for myself for a change. And I did it. And the 2nd half of '08 was fucking brilliant! It was so, so, so difficult to turn my life upside down yet again, to move 2200 miles back east after it took me 2+ years to finally get the hang of and truly love life on the Left Coast. But was worth it a million times over to come home. I missed St. Louis so much...what a beautiful place. It buoys my soul to be back here amongst the red brick and seasons, to watch the river flow and feel that soulful connection to the streets and my favorite haunts. And the people. The people! Old friends and tons of family and new friends! That right there was a massive part of what my life had been missing for three years. But yeah...August to present has been nothing but a continuous upward curve. Well, there have been some small downticks, but the overall trend has been up, up, up. Sometimes I stand on my street first thing in the morning, before getting in my car to head to work, and I smile and laugh to myself when I realize this is real and that it's really happening, that I'm here. So I sit here on New Year's Eve 2008, wholly satisfied with my life. Never before in my adulthood have I felt like I'm living my life exactly the way I want to live it. I'm reveling in the ability to have my cake and eat it, too -- social when I want to be, happy with the ability to have my own space when I crave solitude, which I often do. I guess what I'm feeling is having achieved balance, something I've striven for many times in the past but never attained. I'm savoring living my life for a change. And it feels damn good. I'm gonna drink my Chimay, get the stir fry going, crank the records, and quote the Simpsons to thin air, and I'll hit the sack to wake up in a new year. I have no doubt that 2009 is going to be the most consistently good year of my relatively short life. I'm not saying it's going to be wall-to-wall thrilling, or that nothing bad's going to happen. That'd be unrealistic and, really, just asking for trouble. But I don't foresee any catastrophes. And even if one arises, I've never felt more capable of handling one, or just about anything life can throw at me. I refuse to get cocky, it's not my style. But it's high time I realized that I'm resilient and I'm strong; I'm satisfied and I'm fucking happy with my life, more so than I can ever recall being. When's the last time I spoke like that?
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