21 December 2013

Happy New Year!!

Whaddya mean, Happy New Year?  It’s December 21st

I don’t wish to write a treatise on the stupidity of the modern calendar and the selection of seemingly arbitrary dates for marking the beginning/end of a circular event, but it seems far more obvious that the trajectory should align with some sort of inversion, and since today is the solstice and I happen to be awake and reasonably alert and in the mood for some reflection – well, here we go.

2013 – You can go get fucked.

Seriously, what a shit year that was. And I am not the only one who felt this way.  A lot of things went poorly for a lot of people.  For me personally, it was a very dark year – medically, professionally, geographically, and I am really happy to be putting it into my rear view.  I am not so naïve as to imagine that the relative tilt of the earth’s axis to the plane of the orbit around the sun is sufficient to drive a turnaround in circumstance, fortune, and personal energy – but fuck it, I could benefit from a little more magic in my life.  It’s not like I am going to start attending incense laden prayer circles and hugging trees in school parking lots…

I thought I might recap the horror show of the preceding months that brought me to the notion that I am about to commence a new chapter, but I don’t even feel like revisiting the trauma of Kevin’s journey through treatment for Hepatitis C, or my mother’s through breast cancer, or the soul-sucking pageantry of working in sales, or the overshadowing feeling of isolation and loneliness that sneak up and envelop expats on occasion, sometimes for months on end…but in truth, I really do not feel like touching any of it, even if it is to pack it up into tidy suitcases so I can slip them into a corner of my mental attic.  Better to just close the door on that room altogether – or maybe rent a dumpster and resist the temptation to sort through each pain as I toss it…but that tactic never works – I live with a hoarder who sneaks into the rubbish after I have gone to sleep and brings the emotional garbage back into the house, piling it in corners and walkways.

Although there is no question that I am beginning a new chapter – what with a continental shift in my homestead, a new job, and a new set of revitalized relationships, I truly have no reason other than intense desire to believe that 2014 will be any better…that I will mysteriously acquire better coping mechanisms, that the distress of aging will diminish, or that my hoarder will suddenly start releasing his hurts to the high seas.  But here’s to the glorious wonder of hope – and of saying to the universe ”This is what I want, what I deserve.  It is mine by rights, and you shall give it to me, asshole.”

Wishing you all a wonderful, magical, mystical, practical, and healthy 2014!

 

Oh, and this marks the final entry into Audra’s Australian Adventures.  I hope you have enjoyed this chapter and thank you for your kind patronage.  I can’t make any promises of launching Audra’s American Adventures in any formal sense, because new chapters require new formats, otherwise it gets stale and obligatory and stops resembling fun.  And also because I know the new job will be using up a lot of my brain-space until I develop a degree of mastery or run off to Borneo, whichever comes first.