The year that was my life, sized up

The Groundhog Day of self-reflection....January 1. More like Groundhog Month of December, actually. It's the 31-day-home-stretch, yearly....a time for me to look back over the preceding eleven months, analyze how far I've come, how much further I need to reach. So goes the plight of a New Year's Baby. The numbered marriage of 2 and 7 is less than two weeks away, and I sit here wondering, What does 2007 mean, in the big picture that's called "My Life"?

12 months of stress, anguish, personal evaluation, re-structuring, and soul-searching. A few effecting-me-only bombshells greeted me after last birthday, a time when I thought I had it all figured out. Assumed I was living above the clouds in ways. Which all came crashing down like a failed jet-plane. Not to over-dramatize things, but essentially that's how certain revelations hit me, and me alone.

Questions surfaced, and fresh-starts became mandatory. While certain life-changes were halted by unforeseen, bad-timing circumstances, others happened much more easily than anticipated. Namely, a sense of contentness toward my place. Thanks to one hell of a cool, hard-working, and super-dad brother and a loving-mother, hardnosed but for all the good reasons sis-in-law, I'm the G-O-D-father to two of the greatest, coolest, funniest, craziest, and best-looking (hey, I can be biased) rugrats around: Gianna (or, Baby G, Lil G, Geezy G, etc) and Nicholas (or, My Man Nick, Lil Nicky, Ay-Yo-Nick, etc). I'm the son of two of the best parents you could ever hope for, a tag-team duo who'll unconditionally and without-hesitation look out for me when needed, no matter how big or measly the need is, they're on the job.

And, if not more importantly than damn close to equal value, I'm the lucky recipient of an arsenal of the most unique, layered, complicated, yet never-less-than supportive and an-escapist's-lifeline squads of friends around. There's the one who always knows how to have a great time, and won't let another person's over-thinking and/or lethargic inclinations prevent wild times from unfolding. Just unconsciously free-spirited, and it's a miracle more often than not. And then there's the longtime best friends who've found their significant others, their soulmates (sap pours on thickly some times, in ways you can't stop....here be one). Watching how perfectly they've settled into relationship-functions gives a still-single-but-not-for-lack-of-effort guy such as myself endless hope. Dating is a practice originally established within the fifth circle of Hell, but it's a needed evil, and we must deal. But couples like my friends' indirectly operate like a factory of Tony Robbins clones, fed nothing but Redbulls. And last, but not least in the slightest, I can't neglect to mention my fellow single co-defendants, the (un)lucky few who, on a weekly basis, brave the social scene with yours truly, embarking on the same liquor-and-skirt-chasing path, mostly favoring the liquor part unintentionally. These guys (whether single by choice, fate, or divine intervention) may be the most crucial of the friend-bunch, because without them, self-reflection would never end, and I'd surely have lost my shit-marbles by now if so.

The biggest realization that I've arrived at, though, by 2008's final setpiece: that I'm going to be alright. Took much sifting through paranoia and concern, but I've reached. Sure, I'm not awarded the bloated salaries that some around me rake in, and yes, I'm somebody who's not fairly-enough compensated by his bank-account-stuffers. But I've accepted these realities, because I'm doing something I love, and am able to make a living-on-my-own as a byproduct, and that's not half bad. Besides, this current economic snowball-to-nightmare has taught me invaluable money-saving, and spending-less habits/practices that'll be utilized 'til my final hour. And that's not half bad, either.

And true, I work in an industry that's undergoing a serious self-reflection of its own, but I'm not that phased. As long as I can write, and exercise my imagination, I'll be happy. Not to mention, I have a couple career-rejuvenators up my sleeve that (hopefully) 2009 will see the kickstarting(s) of, and I'm hella-excited about both. Let's just say, I sure do love reading scripts and/or dark fiction. Seems like writing either/or would be a hoot.

2008, a year that'll forever be recollected as a turning-point-milestone for y-truly. 12 calendar-pages from now, I'm hoping to have introduced not only new, exciting chapters, but entirely-fresh sets into the anthology called "life."

Wish me luck. Or don't, and concern yourself little-to-none over the matter(s). It's all about me, me, me, me, me, anyway. Forget about you, you, you, you, you. So what 'cha wanna do?