It’s that time of the year, where people are under the belief that all the successes, failures, problems, issues, trends and stigmas can all be encapsulated into a box, taped shut, have the year written with a fat sharpie it, and jettisoned off into space, like a new star in Katamari Damacy. If it were only as simple as that.
Yet, the fact that I write posts like this, at this time of the year, almost every year, proves that I’m really no different in the fact that I tend to write encapsulation posts, even though I don’t think bringing things to light will necessarily give me a nice clean slate at the start of the next calendar year.
But for what it’s worth, I can’t say that 2015 was the greatest of years, but it wasn’t necessarily the worst of years either. No surprise there, letting the slider dangle back and forth, somewhere in the middle. Obviously, I have a tendency to think that what I feel surely must be what others feel, even thought that can’t really be the case, but at least me personally, that’s the nature of life, there’s an ebb and flow between the good and bad; it’s just that I think 2015 was slightly more dangling in the bad side, but that’s not to say that there was no good in it at all.
When I try and look at the year as a whole, three things in particular stand out in my opinion. Two were decidedly more in the negative spectrum, and one was very much in the positive.
Changing jobs in the middle of the year proved to be a tumultuous scenario, and one that I look at, still with one part wonder, and another part regret, despite the fact that I really, really don’t like to live my life with regrets. Honestly, it was kind of a negative experience as a whole, with lasting repercussions and stresses, because the job I changed to, is the one I still have today, and I’d be lying if I said that it were all roses and that I loved it. Quite the contrary, sometimes.
I took the job I did, because it was a change of scenery in terms of location and subject matter, but when the day is over, I can’t say it’s at all much better than the previous. Sure, the pay is better, but I’m still spending a lot of time trying to dig myself back into the black, but mostly because I’m spending more money on account of the fact that my social life is different for the better, and I’m doing more things. The location is a shorter commute, and doesn’t require me to get on the highway and sit in traffic, but it’s subsequently on the equivalent of the moon from Metro Atlanta, leaving me feeling like I have to kill myself to get anywhere after work sometimes.
And the job itself kind of stinks, because of it’s feast-or-famine nature, and when it’s feasting time, it means that I might have to work weekends, and holidays. Like, during Christmastime, I found myself working on Christmas Eve, and many hours over the weekend after it. Amazingly, on Christmas Day itself my work phone stayed silent, but hey, even the Vietcong left American forces alone on Christmas too.
But I have to live with the choices I make, and this is the job that I have now, and because I have bills and responsibilities to upkeep, it’s what I have to maintain.
I don’t really like to bring it up often, but for the sake of justification of shitty things, there was a cancer diagnosis in my family this year. Yes, this would be one of many, that occurs on a daily basis, across the world, but it was one of those situations where it came out of the blue, and leads entire families to ponder “why us?”
And so often is the case when it comes to the dreaded C word, all answers and information are all question marks. Can’t do anything but wait. Wait for results, diagnoses, hope. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst. A shitty job can be life-altering, but not in the magnitude and lasting repercussions of the dreaded C word.
However, not everything was sucky about 2015. 2015 marked the year that I finally got to really blow the dust off of, and actually use my passport, when I went to Europe. This was the first time I’ve ever left the western hemisphere, and left the continent outright. In the span of a week was a whirlwind of a trip that saw Brussels, Paris, Amsterdam and Berlin, knocking four countries out in the blink of an eye. I’d be remiss to not mention that the impetus of the trip was the League of Legends WORLDS championship, thus truly making this a nerdy trip with nerdy goals, but it was still an incredible excursion that truly took a huge swing at my general life’s ambitions to want to actually go travel the world.
It would be near criminal to fail to mention the fact that such an adventure would probably never happened if not for the coaxing and encouragement of the mythical girlfriend, whom has basically been the brightest spot in my life pretty much throughout the year. I say this freely and without fear of being accused of pandering because I’m pretty sure that even she doesn’t read my brog with regularity, if at all, but it’s pretty true. But really, I’m fortunate and lucky to have her in my life, because she doesn’t ask too much of me, pushes me to want to be a better person, and gives me the little nudges to pursue adventurous things that might have been outside of single-Danny’s comfort zones previously, among many other positive things.
Amazingly, she managed to stick around the entire calendar year and not run away shrieking for dear life, and I’m excited to still have her, and see what adventures await us the next year and hopefully beyond.
Everything else that has filled in the gaps throughout the rest of the year was kind of a blur of League of Legends, a mediocre baseball season with an even worse Braves team that I’ve developed disdain for organizationally, a mediocre Dragon*Con that kind of made me think that I’m over conventions (again), and a whole lot of things that were more or less background noise, some partially diluted by emotional influence by the negative major points.
I saw just one new MLB park, in Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets out in Queens, which brings my overall goal of MLB ballparks to 27/30 visited, even though my big gay orange brother’s server has crippled my ballparks site as well as all of my old site’s archives. I’ve already gotten ideas on how to tackle the final three ballparks, hopefully in 2016, but the question is more if I can take the time to make such things happen.
Anyway, the point of the leading graphic of the Final Fantasy V Cure spell gif, is more in the line of thought that I’m a person easily influenced by the emotional states of those around me, evidenced in my general air of holiday blues, because people in my little world were having some rough times. As easy as it would be to say to mind my own business and try and live my own life, I can’t help that my own state of being is often predicated by the beings of those around me, and frankly I know of too many people who are having hard times and/or dealing with health matters. And in a perfect world, magical shit like Cure spells existed, and really could, simply wipe out ailments, make people feel better, and generally just cure people with nothing more than a few words, and blue mana potions.
But since we live in the real world, and such magical concepts don’t actually exist, the next best thing is simply hoping for the best.
As is the case with pretty much every year, here’s hoping that the next year is better than the one we’re leaving behind. I have hopes that not just mine, but everyone around me’s lives have better fortune, luck and good times throughout 2016, lower in the bad, higher in the good, with improved health.
And since 2016 is an even-numbered year, I hope the San Francisco Giants don’t win another World Series. Seriously, fuck that team.
Really though, let’s all hope that 2016 is pretty good. Best wishes for all!
