The Year of the Ox

To my family and friends: an update.

On the Chinese calendar, this is the Year of the Ox. Traditionally thought of as a sign of prosperity through endurance and hard work, it sums up well what this year is for me. Edging up to January 20th of this year, I was excited, enthusiastic, and felt invulnerable and incorruptible. Despite your politics, I think most people had to have been moved by President Obama’s call to service (though with enough poison in the veins, even that can be looked upon with a spin toward character attack), and it happened to coincide with the new road map I’ve been on since this past fall, a map I started to sketch out once my work life had improved.

Of course, there were ugly reminders of the real life, and what would have been a lofty and potentially naïve blog was put on the backburner. This economic crisis with the ridiculously high numbers being spent by the government (I’m not an economist; I sincerely hope that this plan works because the alternative is an ugly one.), and closer to home the economic situation of friends. No sooner had I started down my path than my roommate got laid off… and these past few months, with an additional roommate coming on board, my life feels like a microcosm of the larger situation.

I have almost completely redirected my life in the past year. While some old and bad habits persist, I have continued to shift into a new train of thought, or state of being. I am remaking myself, a both exciting and terrifying process.

The increased income has enabled me to continue my schooling (which I intend to attend year-round until completion). I’ve cut a lot of extraneous expenses so that I could afford to go to school and still be able to put money away. Finally knowing what degree I want has made everything fall into place, however, given me a clear path to take. Year-round schooling is a small sacrifice to make when I felt adrift and in a dream since, well… 2001?

I’ve made a concerted effort to lose weight (25 pounds so far at peak, though there has been a little backpedaling). The nice thing about that is when I do fall off the horse, it’s not expensive to get back on. I just came back from an hour+ walk, which I used to organize my thoughts and reflect further on those stumbling blocks I continue to erect. If you want real change, you need to look inward.

I’m also writing again, something I thought I would be putting off, but simply couldn’t. When something is your passion, your life-blood, you simply can’t shut that off. I’m still looking to balance that with schoolwork, however.

Finally, I’m getting my own place this summer. After a lot of waffling and mind-changing, from looking at cheap homes to apartments to debating back and forth the pros and cons of having a roommate, I decided I finally want the serenity of my own place. Especially while I’ll be working full time, schooling close to full time, and losing a lot of my social free time in the interim.

I find myself looking back at the road I’ve taken, trying to really analyze it and see what I might take away from the path of my adult life so far.

Before working in the Emergency Room, I can safely say that my life was a nebulous thing. I came out of high school hating school, and that disrupted my first year on campus. I decided to put my school off. I certainly didn’t know what I wanted to do, other than write. Living at home also became unbearable, and I found myself paying some rent to live in the basement of a duplex at my friend Scott’s place. At that time, life was about hanging out with friends, movies and games and little else. I worked at a number of places during this time, saw an acquaintance arrested right in front of my eyes (that was a surreal experience), and eventually found myself back at home. That lasted no more than half a year as living with my mother was just as, if not more, unbearable.

This time, the other half of Scott’s parents’ duplex was empty, and I rented out that basement instead. I started attending classes at GRCC. The semester I went back, I ended up withdrawing from classes. It was the same semester the WTC was attacked, and my perspective, along with everyone else’s, had changed. I started working at Goldmine not long after, and found myself living from paycheck to paycheck. I moved to one apartment for three years, and I'll have been at this one two years when it's time to move. Those were good times, and I was in a work environment I loved, and for the longest time didn’t feel compelled to move on. But I was, in essence, ‘stuck’.

I’ve read articles about the psychology of our ‘generation’, who is more lost and unfocused than the ones before us. Directionless, purposeless, perhaps lacking a fire or ambition. I saw it in myself; I saw it in those around me. It was an ugly thing. But as much as I despised those years under the Bush presidency, one thing he did do for me was make me interested in politics and the shape of the country. It was an interest born of fear and loathing, of seeing the ugly beast we were becoming and of wanting to change course. Eventually, a love of country and freedom became the driving force, a bit healthier.

It seemed, at first, that all we needed was to clean house… get the other side in office and perhaps see some of the mistakes corrected. But as time went on, I found that salvation wasn’t going to be coming from the Democrats, who I now lump with the Republicans as two halves of the same problem. I’m now watching Obama tentatively, hoping to see changes for the better. My gut’s against all the spending, but I’m not an economist. Hell, professional economists didn’t see this mess coming.

I digress. What the Bush years did do was succeed in making me a de-facto Libertarian. Along with a certain political identity, I felt more and more compelled to try and shape things for the better. I don’t intend to run for any sort of office, but that, along with what Spectrum offers, did help me settle on a Bachelor’s Degree: Public and Non-Profit Administration. Getting involved in processes, trying to find solutions through puzzle-solving, and improving things, is the kind of creative effort I can get behind. Add to that a recommitment to learning Spanish (minor #1) and more professional training in Writing (minor #2, possible Masters down the road), and I was able to map out precisely what I needed to get there.

The harder work is changing patterns of behavior, developing new habits. I’m making my writing something I try to do at least a few hours a week. I want to slim down to my ideal body weight by the end of the year (or at least close to it!), and that requires regular exercise, focusing on cardio, endurance and weight training, as well as sacrificing soda pop and taming the sweet tooth.

It’s a little ironic that I seem to have found my course at the same time the country seems to have lost its way. It will take a lot of work and a lot of people to turn things around, and that feels like an exciting challenge. This is the year of hard work, and the first of many to come. All I needed was a little hope and a plan to give me the fuel I needed.

I hope I can extend that same hope to those of you in my life. We are being called to greatness. God bless!