This is my 2012

Image

The thing I can’t decide is if this is the rear view or the forward view. It feels a bit like both some days. I played with inverting the image so the end of the tunnel was bright, but I decided to keep it like this. Not dark and depressing. Just unknown. Mysterious.

What’s weird? Looking back a year. Two years. Three. So different from this one. So very different. Different hopes, different directions, different futures. I can’t lie and say that seeing Looper didn’t mess with me. It did. While I love time travel movies, I love them even more when they are well done. That’s all I’m saying about the movie. Thinking about the fluidity of my future? The cloudiness of it? That has been my biggest mind jack of the year. It’s not like “oh no! I don’t know what’s going to happen! Woe!”

It’s closer to “Hmmm. This is new. This is very new. I did not expect it to be like this. Hmmm. And now that there is this present new, the future is all new. My future is new.”

Yes, I know that this trail of psychic blood might be unseemly to write about. But I think a lot of men retreat into their marriages, into family life and stop developing their own interests, staying in touch with friends. To be sure, that’s not every man. It’s a generalization. But a lot of men don’t keep a sense of self that isn’t tied to a significant other and kids. Then when that life stops, the realities are a bracing wake up. I never felt like I was one of those guys. But I was. ANd I think it’s the shock of that realization that has stayed so present this year. I just can’t seem to get over it. I want to. But I’m almost stuck. I don’t feel stuck. But I bet in a year or two? I’ll realize I was stuck.

While there are only a few months left in 2012, I’m working on a lot of the things I said I would. One of the best: practicing and learning to play the guitar better. Tonight I took an hour and a half and played Rocksmith. I’m still an amateur in the game. But damn if it isn’t enjoyable to learn songs on a real guitar in a gamified way.

Another thing I’m working on every single day: Presence. As in being present. It’s one of the reasons I started doing the affirmations. And they are working for me.

* * *

Affirmation: Keep it real, fool.

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  • http://twitter.com/CarenJew C-C Rider

    Great, great post Jon! Beautiful picture to go with too. It’s all good. Life is really rich, you know? Even when it’s icky, it’s pretty cool to reflect back on a time. OK, that’s as deep as I’m gonna get. But I like this post.

    • http://blurbomat.com/ blurb

      Thanks!

  • http://twitter.com/shadowmousey shadowmousey

    Plenty of women do it, too, really. I did. It’s hard to maintain your own individual identity and also commit fully to a relationship. It’s a balancing act I don’t think I’ve quite mastered yet, but I’m getting better at it.

  • Angie L.

    I love this thought of knowing there is a point in the future when you will look back on this time right now and see something different..feel something different about it. It keeps things in a perspective.

  • RoseM

    Keep the affirmations coming. You’re about 5 months ahead of me, mirror situation, but worse. There are things that serve as pinpoints of light that remind me that this darkness will lift; your blog is one of them.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Aimee-Parkhurst/93200417 Aimee Parkhurst

    Keep on keeping on. Keep letting it all in. The little victories will start to stick to one another. They’ll accumulate, lengthen, take on form and shape and one day you’ll be able to look them in the face and recognize yourself again. In the meantime, your heart’s still beating and after the year you seem to have had, that is victory enough. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ZNw1s5eD9c

  • http://kristanhoffman.com/ Kristan

    “I think a lot of men retreat into their marriages, into family life and stop developing their own interests, staying in touch with friends. To be sure, that’s not every man. It’s a generalization. But a lot of men don’t keep a sense of self that isn’t tied to a significant other and kids.”

    I think both genders do this, unfortunately. And it’s a lesson that modern adult generations are learning the hard way. But hopefully we *can* learn it, and our children can learn it from us too. (And then they can find their own mistake to make. :P )

  • http://www.facebook.com/BDPlunkett Brian Plunkett

    Your 2012 was my 2011 (generally speaking of course), and the affirmation I think I’ve finally accepted is this: I need to learn who I am again to move forward. I’m going to get stuck along the way (might be right now actually), but if I keep discovering what I like and eliminating what I don’t, I think I’m on the right track.

    Thank you for posting this today and making me think a little bit about my own circumstances. It was the prompt I needed to evaluate.

  • Lilly O’Handley

    10 years ago…wow 10 years…I went through a divorce and realized I had forgotten all my dreams. That realization was actually worse than the crumbled relationship. I was embarrassed. I was unable to accept that “I / me” did that/allowed it to happen. Groan. Learning to dream, pausing to find me, I am now married to my best friend…and 10 years ago I would have laughed my ass off at that statement and called myself trite. ;oD Remembering who we are is the greatest gift we can give our friends, our kids, our mates. For me, sometimes, it’s a daily process.

  • Lindsay

    I have been on the opposite side of this situation in that I am not planning on having kids, so, my husband and I do not have that bond. I figure it’s a sacrifice either way, but still, I struggle with the decision. I want to feel secure and resolved, but I feel like I’m bound to miss out either way. I still feel it would be the “smarter and more responsible” choice, given my situation… which is knowing the high likelihood of passing on depression, anxiety, panic, and adhd, or a combo, and managing a fucked up kid while also trying to manage myself.

  • meg

    Might this make you gag? Maybe! Is this even possible…? I have no idea. But I keep this passage on file for if/when I ever again consider getting married. It seems to speak to what you’re saying here about becoming lost in a marriage.

    Rilke’s thoughts on marriage:

    The point of marriage
    is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the
    contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partner appoints the other to be the guardian of
    his solitude, and thus they show each other the greatest possible trust. A
    merging of two people is an impossibility, and where it seems to exist, it is a
    hemming-in, a mutual consent that robs one party or both parties of their
    fullest freedom and development. But once the realization is accepted that even between
    the closest people infinite distances
    exist, a marvelous living side-by-side can grow up for them, if they succeed in loving the expanse between
    them, which gives them the possibility of always seeing each other as a whole and
    before an immense sky.