new years .

So it's New Years. I'll talk about the cliche resolution-type things in a moment... first I just wanted to mention a few things that really struck me as annoying/odd/interesting today.

Firstly, I had a decent chat with my father this evening. We talked about moving out, and living away from "home." I asked him at what point it was appropriate the not come back here for holidays anymore. His answer was concise, but meant a lot. He said, you never have to. We'd be happy to have you, but feel free to do what you want. If you have other plans, feel free. To some of you this may sound like he's trying to sort of get me out of the house, and maybe even come off as insulting. But for me, it's a breath of fresh air. It's the sort of freedom and respect I would love to have all the time from my parents. In the past year and a half I've been away at school, I've only come home for 2 holidays, those being Christmas both years. Just haven't really been into coming for the others I suppose.



Second, my extended family has been here for a day and half or so. They arrived yesterday. I've never been a fan, but I was never really able to tell you why, other than to complain about personality traits that bother me about them, with the exception of my Uncle Jim. My grandmother is cold and we have nothing in common, my other uncle tries to philosophize about my life and tell me how to run it and how I'm spiritually lacking and need to do all kinds of things to make my life whole, blah blah. But one giant thing is, there simply isn't much extended family to choose from. When I have a choice out of 3, all of whom are much older than I, the likelihood that I will find someone I really connect with and enjoy time with is slim to none. I have no cousins my age. I'm almost jealous of people that have giant families with 30 cousins and 10 aunts and uncles. There was only one chance really for me to have cousins my age, and that was with my mom's younger brother and his wife. They opted not to have children. My dad's sister had kids, all of whom are way older than me. There are a few of THEIR kids who are around my age. Sad, the way that is. And thus, I dread when the relatives come. I just can't live with it, I feel obligated to stay in the house, and my mom makes me feel guilty about the gives I receive from them given their financial situations. The entire situation is simply miserable. And thus, today was not the best of days. But I survive, time continues on, and I am thankful to be alive and well, despite the fact I choose to mope and complain about the gift of life I am given.

On to some new yearsy stuff.

There are some things I definitely want to do better in the coming year. However, I've never really found a specific day reason enough to decide to go out and make a list of everything I want to change about myself and in my life. Why should I restrict myself to one time of year to make improvements? I think it's funny that every year when I get back to school Fike (the gym at school) is incredibly crowded for the first month or so. You also see tons of people out running. But that soon ends as people give up on their "resolutions," which all of a sudden seem to have less importance after a month or two has gone by. Plus, why should we fix ourselves this year when we'll just have to make new resolutions for next year? Mind as well keep the problem around so as not to run out of things to resolve. And thus of course there are things I would like to change about myself, however I believe that the goal above all, is to keep the goals I set with me all the time, and to always be conscious of the flaws when I make them. So here are a few things I aspire to not only in the following year, but also in general in life:

- Be pure -- in mind, body, and spirit.
- Manage my time. Even if that means skipping something I would normally want to do.
- Manage my money. I seem to have a bottomless hole in my pocket when it comes to cash, and I really need to start saving.
- Explore myself in music. Get into it, lose myself in the chords, the notes, the magic.
- Write like there is no tomorrow. Continue this blog, and let the words flow when I am inspired.
- Make amends, at some point, with my parents. It has been a long time since we've been completely cool. Even if it takes years to do, it's never too late to patch things together, if only for a bit.
- Get in shape, and stay in shape. Every year I do the full 90 days of P90X, and then I lose it all, either because I seem to run out of time to do the workouts during the school year, or I lose motivation. Finding someone to do workouts with would be ideal.
- Meditate for half an hour a day. In addition, spend some time with my daily devo that I bought myself as well. The last 2 things go along with time management -- It's truly amazing what you can do if you allot yourself the time and stay focused.

Those are the main ones. But may we remember that these goals are not temporary, they are something we should always be thinking about, and something that we should never really give up on, no matter what. I like to think of myself as a work in progress, an artistic piece that is never really quite completed -- but by death, hopefully I will be at a point that is at the least, satisfactory.

That's all I really got for today. There are most likely things I am forgetting from this bottomless pit of a mind that I have, but that always seems to be the case. I also wanted to say that I'm going to be starting something new as a part of the new year -- I was inspired by a story, of a man who passed away. Upon clearing away his personal belongings, his family found a stockpile of thousands of Polaroid camera pictures. There was one for each day for years of his life. They didn't really ever have captions and sometimes may have seemed meaningless, but there was one picture for every day. Something that jumped out at him, something that meant something to him. And those continued until the day he died. You could sort of experience a small portion of his life, a gift that many would find to be priceless. So basically, I plan on doing the same. However, I have decided to go about it a different way. Instead of using a Polaroid camera, I will simply be using my digital camera. And I'm going to create a second blog, which will contain these pictures, one per day, perhaps with a small caption of each. I'm not going to write out why it was important to me that day, but I will state what it is, and people can simply let their minds run. So I'll set up a link to that in tomorrow's blog.

Happy new year, and may your 2011 be blessed with gifts of both necessity and desire, as well as a strong love from both God and those around you.