New Year's Resolutions/Confessions

Happy New Year!

The past year has been one where I've been very unhappy.  I don't know if it's been THE most miserable of my life, but it's up there.  This year I learned how I look to creditors (like a wet-behind-the-ears child), I felt like a prisoner (had to give up my car for a few months when we lost our second car), I feared losing people I love (friends and family), and I struggled with money (having to support my sister and her brood when she blew through $10,000 and then again when she up and quit her job and didn't get another one for over a month).  I've been very stressed out.  Normally, I don't talk about my FEELINGS, so I don't really open up to many people.  I've always felt a little like my problems are less than others' problems so I bottle myself up.  This post is going to be about expressing some FEELINGS and making some resolutions.

First, I wanted to run through the six major emotions and give an example of how I've felt each one in the past twelve months.  The six emotions are fear, disgust, sadness, anger, happiness, and surprise.  I've said it before (though somewhere else, I believe), those are some depressing emotions.  The only chance for happiness is, well, happiness, and possibly surprise.  Let's see if I was surprised for the better this year -

1)  Fear:  This year I've been afraid that I'm just a convenience to most people.  I feel this way a lot, in every aspect of my life.  From my house, where I feel like a convenient meal ticket, to my job, where I feel like a convenient filler, to my friendships, where I feel like a convenient backup.  I wonder what's wrong with me?  I fear that people often realize there isn't much to me, that I'm too boring, too shy, too nervous.  I fear that I have to admit they're right.  In the beginning, I meet new people and they want to go out after work or out to dinner on a weekend.  We make plans a few times, we go out.  Eventually I ask them to go out and they're busy.  Then they aren't busy as long as someone else is coming.  Then they make plans with that person right in front of me and don't invite me and that is very painful.  But then I think how I'm not exciting.  My hobbies are reading and video games.  Who the hell would be interested in me?  Sometimes later they ask me after they've been rejected and don't realize I was standing right there and now I know they're only asking me for their own convenience.  I'm probably not even Plan B.

2)  Disgust:  I've felt disgusted with several members of my family.  From my sister mooching from everyone around her to my niece's "I just tell the truth" piss-poor attitude, I've felt disgusted at a lot of the hypocrisy surrounding me on a daily basis.  On Christmas my sister, who got pregnant at seventeen years old, told another niece she was a whore for getting pregnant at twenty-one.  ON CHRISTMAS.  Then, hours later, several members of my family decided to rant and rail about this WHORE in front of a guest, a somewhat stranger, a ninety-year-old invalid who my sister-in-law takes care of and who has no family and came to our house to celebrate Christmas with someone.  I was so embarrassed.  My mother was mortified.  She tried to get them to stop but, you know, sorry, someone has to tell the truth and they're all just telling the truth.  The truth hurts.  It's also ugly.  And often hypocritical.  And disgusting.

3)  Sadness:  It was sad that my middle sister, who is handicapped but pretty much totally independent, was told she might have to make a choice between death and being bedridden for life.  It's been frustrating and sad to see someone punished who is trying, who is taking care of her children, who helps her parents and everyone around her whenever she can.  What force in the universe has decided this?  I know it's just the luck of the draw, just circumstance, but where am I supposed to scream about the unfairness of it all?  I'm somewhat sad that I have nowhere to turn for even cathartic blame.  Luck.  Fucking LUCK.  So far my sister has staved off making this choice. I don't know when her LUCK will run out, though.  It's sad that I know in my heart it will be soon.

4)  Anger:  Anger.  I have felt a lot of anger.  I'm angry at myself, mostly.  I've made my bed.  I've relied on my parents for too long and caused the situation where I have no substantial credit history.  I've allowed myself to get comfortable in a mediocre job.  I've procrastinated.  I've wallowed in so-called "writer's block."  I've secreted myself away and pushed away my friends.  Isn't my sister who lives with me just projecting her internal FEELINGS when she calls people lazy, calls them stupid, calls them WHORES?  My anger with her is anger with myself.  I haven't saved money.  I haven't endeavored for a better job or developed the discipline to turn my talent into something real.  I haven't changed my routine of wake up, work, play on the computer, read, sleep.  Again, who could be interested in me?  Not just socially but financially, career-wise, etc.?  Who am I and what am I doing?  Where am I going, where have I been?  I'll be thirty-four and I can't even FIND my diploma for graduate school.  What the hell have I done with it?

5)  Happiness:  I don't know.  There were little moments.  I was happy when I got my car back after about six months of never being able to use it.  I was happy when I discovered the writer Haruki Murakami.  I was happy when I found a Chocolate Orange in a random place at the grocery store because I've searched up and down for them.  I was happy listening to Gene Wilder read an audiobook.  I was happy when an antibiotic finally cleared up the acne on my face (please let it last).  I'm trying so hard to think of something big.  To think of a moment that carried me through longer than a day or two.  Maybe...maybe happiness is just those little moments?  Maybe I should print that out and tape it above my bed.  Maybe every day I need to sit down and remember the one thing that made me happy that day, even if it's just the hot UPS man calling me "dear."

6)  Surprise:  I was suprised to admit to myself it's okay to be unhappy.  I've spent so much time being upset when my somewhat happier childhood was brushed off as though I was less of a person for feeling happy.  Pain is supposedly what makes us human.  I hated the words, "You don't know how that feels," because it was like my life was not valid because I hadn't experienced this or that.  I still don't cater to that theory.  Everyone, even happy people, are valid.  Their opinions and FEELINGS are valid.  But...I'm a little less happy than I have been in the past.  And that doesn't break my theory.  I don't feel stronger.  I don't necessarily feel weaker, either.  I feel...different.  I feel...focused?  I feel...exposed?  I feel....

So I've made some resolutions.  Some I've made before, like reading and writing schedules.  It WILL happen.  This time (I mean it) I don't have a goal as much as a routine.  I will read one book, then take a day off to reflect on that book, then read another book, etc.  One thing I've learned about myself recently is that I don't like to read books back-to-back.  I like to ruminate.  I like to bounce around ideas and uncover flaws and discover wonders.  I like to return to particularly intriguing passages.  When I was finished reading 1Q84 by Murakami, I tried immediately reading another book and what happened was I hated the newer book because I wanted to return to parts of 1Q84 and think.  I know, it sounds like homework, this routine.  It sounds like all of the pleasure is being taken out of picking up a book and getting lost in it.  But I promise, for me, this is how I can make myself happy.

The next resolution is about money.  I'm going to keep a ledger.  I want to see where my money goes.  I already started an informal one and for the most part my money goes toward the little groceries we need to keep the house running (milk, toilet paper, bread) and I go to the store for those things almost daily.  Last week I bought five gallons of milk.  FIVE GALLONS.  Everyone at my job knows when my parents call me they're going to ask me to pick something up at the grocery store after work.  So my resolution is this:  I will keep two columns - one where I write down the exact amount I've spent and one where I round up to the next dollar.  At the end of the month I will put the difference into a separate account.  Also, any money left out of my paycheck at the end of every two weeks will go into my savings account.  That's a third account, by the way.  I will have two checking accounts and a savings account.  The savings account is for absolute - and I mean life-and-death - emergencies.  The second checking account is for smaller emergencies, though my plan is to try very hard not to touch it either.  These two accounts are secret.  I also have a 401(k) and life insurance.  I WILL start saving money.

My final (big) resolution is to get out and do something.  The local bookstore hosts readings, bands, and other events and I'm going to attend at least one of these events each month.  There is a great wood-fired pizza place right down the street and the bookstore has wi-fi, coffee, and well, books.  Yeah, I'll need some money.  But when I look at how much money I spend getting Subway when I could be making cous-cous and salads that last for several meals and are awesomely fresh-sealed in a jar, I realize that splurging on a $7 pizza and a $10 book once a month isn't what will break my bank.  And now that I have my car back, I can go anywhere I damn-well please for as long as it pleases me.  And I WILL.

I need to do these things to put myself on some sort of track.  These things aren't major life changes but they are what I feel I can do right now.  Do what you can with what you have, right?  Right.

I WILL have a happier new year.