Year's End

It's December 31st, the end of the year.  I'm feeling a bit reflective, and perhaps a bit morose, as is so common this time of year. My thoughts and attention are split between memories of the past year and hope for the one coming.

I'm not sure exactly what I thought moving back to the US would bring. I moved back in part to be near my family; my mom left the state and my sister and I are about as close now as we were when I lived half the world away.
I thought I'd go into the EMR field.  The money and work is good. . . when there is work.  I've spent almost as much time without work/between contracts as I have working.
I moved back to date, hoping to meet a man to be a part of my life.  I suppose I could go back and count the first dates from 2012.  It wasn't quite The Year of a Thousand First Dates, but it felt like it.  I don't feel much closer to finding someone I want to keep around.

I have made some great friends this year. Friends who I've hiked and kayaed and snowshoed with.  Who have enjoyed beer in multiple venues with.  Friends who I hope will be around a while.  I've also managed to keep in touch with a very few really important ones who live farther away than I'd like.

I have had some new experiences: International Beerfest, Oktoberfest in Leavenworth, flying on the company dime, lots of really horrible first dates.

I've filled a lot of days with the hum drum details that fill most people's lives.  Cooking, cleaning, walking the dog, watching hulu, blogging, commuting, dreaming, planning.

I don't see anything of note on the horizon in 2013 right now.  It will undoubtedly be more of the same.  Some of that same being fifteen minutes of cat in my lap meditations, communiting with nature on land and in the sea, organizing and reorganizing the house.  Some of it will be tears, loneliness, and heartache.  Books and movies, restaurants and bars, and lots of other fluff that no one, not even me, will recall at this time next year.

There will be a couple resolutions: less sugar and pop, more exercise.  Simple stuff that I will try to implement in miniscule increments to make them stick.

It's always about ten am on New Years Day that I get a little pang of disappointment.  There is always an expectation that when the sun rises on January 1st, the world will be different.  That maybe I'll be different.  That the sun will sparkle and dreams will come true.  I'm a realist.  I know that's not even going to be the case. I intellectually understand that. I can comprehend that  this expectation is an unrealistic and ludicrous one . . . yet it happens every year. I know it's coming.  In a moment of silence, I push it down the staircase and wait for it to hobble back up by the end of next year. At which point, I am obliged to push it back down.

To any of you who are actively in my life and read this, thank you. I'll see you next week for beers, or in February for a beach break, or when the trails melt.  I thank serendipity for the chance to have met you, my own good sense for having kept you around and I thank you for being fantastic.

Good luck in 2013, because a little luck never hurts ;)

Is life a matter of luck?

If you've met me you're probably heard about my luck.  I say in honesty and with humor that if it weren't for bad luck I'd have no luck at all. Take a breath before we move on.  You might fall into group A: those who think I'm a horrible pessimist and immediately try to convince me otherwise. Group B are those folks who just flat out don't believe I have bad luck.

"Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect" -Ralph Waldo Emerson

I to refer to my luck with tongue planted firmly in cheek. I use the work 'luck' to refer to the huge number of bizarre things that tend to happen to me than I also don't particularly see happening to others. A great example from two weeks ago was a taxi ride.  I'd jumped in the taxi about 12 seconds before it started raining.  That meant my normally 8 minute taxi ride was 20, still not bad and only about 20,000Rp. In that twenty minutes the taxi I was in was hit not once but twice.  Once hit in the rear driver side door and then again from behind.  They were fairly minor, the bus causing a bit of damage to the car.  The taxi driver and I had a good laugh about it, lots of "really?" and head shaking. It adds to the story of my life with question marks and exclamation points.

Maybe what I call luck is what others call fate.  To find someone (i.e. boyfriend, girlfriend) it has to be the right person AND the right time. I prefer to think of it as luck rather than fate since fate sounds like I no longer have a choice in the matter, like it's been decided already. Are the ideas, at least my versions, really so different?  Don't we all sort of make our own definitions of fate and luck, and decide how much we give credence to any of it?

I'm not a pessimist.  I'm a realist.  If there is 'luck' then I'm definitely not blessed with it (I chuckle as I write this).  My nickname in Spain with 'death' and I was deemed to have a bad luck angel, or BLA, that follows me.  I've been trying to reconcile this recently with the giant abacus idea.  I use this as opposed to karma because it's a less religious idea.   If there is a giant abacus, then is there a point when the minuses, the bad luck adds up on one side and there must be a showering of good luck to even things out, right? Life is about balance. too many lions and all the deer disappear.  Too many deer  and the grass disappears.  Too much bad luck and Melissa goes crazy?  If there is an abacus, then I'm wracking up lots of bad now for the good later.  In this vein I wonder if there is often a much faster trade of good for bad luck.  I had my phone stolen last Friday, but had a fantastic weekend with new people.  Maybe it was one for the other.  

AGAIN, I'm not serious about this, don't lecture me about being negative because I'm not.  Its more of a fun theoretical/mental exercise.

P.S. Bad luck?  I thought I had ants in my room and one bit me.  I realized they are actually baby scorpions and I got stung. "LUCKY" for me their tiny!