What I said I wanted last year:

• A more harmonious lifestyle, clean out my clutter and the clutter at mom’s, rid of many books and old papers and old clothes and redundant furniture.
  Definite progress – slow, but I’m making headway

• A tidy apartment so that I could have anyone over (overcome C.H.A.O.S. Can’t Have Anyone Over Syndrome – be a flybaby).
  Again, slow, but I’m making little strides.

• I want to cook nutritious meals 4 or 5 times a week – have a steady rotation of healthy meals that I make well.
  I’m not actually COOKING much. But I prepare healthy food every day. I need to learn a few meals (not just a can of sardines and a bowl of steamed cabbage), but the nutritious part I’ve got covered.

• Have NO credit card debt.
  I think I may pull this off by the end of the year. Miraculous how the universe is helping me with extra work opportunities right now so maybe I can make this goal.

• I want to be toned and weigh <140lbs and be a REGULAR exerciser, 3-5 times a week without belaboring the decision and falling off the wagon after each burst of discipline.
  I’m working on it. Using all the AA wisdom: One day at a time, etc, really helps. Making a little goal of hitting 30 days, rather than a big goal, also helps. Just do the next right thing. All this really applies to exercising daily.

• I want to be in school, successfully completing my masters and developing a good professional network of contacts and a stronger discipline and work ethic, and getting ready to start a great job – feeling confident and skilled and qualified for a great job.
  I am in school and I am progressing in the Masters degree. I haven’t networked much, but the internship I’m starting next week will give me at least one great contact, and I have one professor who’s a good mentor. Need to focus on the work-ethic and discipline part. Definitely feeling 100 times more confident about my ability to get a good job in the not too distant future

• During school I want to minimize debt by continuing to work part time on projects with David, and maybe also as a contractor or freelancer if I feel ready for that. Or rather I should say, I WANT to feel READY for that by this time next year.
  I GOT A P/T JOB THIS WEEK in my industry and some projects from David the next few months, which will help defray the cost of school SUBSTANTIALLY

• I want to have some friends who count to me, who really MATTER, and I want to count to my new friends. I want friendships that are gratifying, where when I need someone to talk to I can think of someone to call, and when they need someone to talk to, they think of me, too. And where we visit each other and/or go out and do fun things together. Fun, supportive, consistent friendships.
  Needs work, but I do have at least ONE semi-real new friendship that is gratifying. We don’t see each other that often but I’m making an effort to call. And I’m trying to nurture some other new friendships, but they’re shaky. This is tough, but I’m taking baby steps.

• I want to be in a healthy relationship with a really great guy. Or, at least, to feel positive and have an optimistic attitude toward the possibility of love and I want to enjoy dating and feel good about myself and my worthiness as a woman.
  No men on the horizon, but I’m WAY more optimistic and feeling so much better about myself, my vitality/attractiveness/femininity/options than I was last year. I don’t care at all that I’m 35. Odds shmods. I’m doing fine.

• I want to be comfortable with and excited and confident about the idea that I could manage (physically, emotionally, financially) to bring a child into my life – whether it’s with someone or on my own.
  Hm. I don’t know. I’m much closer to feeling this way, certainly. Whether I’ll be able to say this completely by the end of the year, I think probably no. But, I’m a lot more comfortable with the idea and I’ll probably be even more comfortable next year.

NEWER AND MORE IMPROVED (more realistic) top 10 goals to achieve by the end of the year.

• not writing
• aging/looks/body image
• being the sloppiest slob that ever slobbed
• lack of motivation/ambition/productivity
• career confusion/lack of achievement
• financial wreckage
• being single
• having few friends

There they are. My little parade of county-fair-blue-ribbon winning troubles. I’ve been obsessing about these for years, so much so that the worry and self-recrimination I’ve cultivated have come to seem like a big part of WHO I AM. This is not working for me. So, whatever’s happening with any of these issues, this is the year I accept it; resolve the torment even if I can’t manage to self-improve one iota. Let go the fear and judgment and desperation and whining and moaning. GIVE IT UP. Give it to God. I’m done.

1. Reach 90 consecutive days of abstinence from alcohol, sugar (except from whole fruits and veggies and raw honey), flour, coffee and dairy.
2. Reach 90 consecutive days of 30 minutes physically active each day.
3. Be able to jog 1 hour without stopping to walk and do 10 true push-ups (good form, chest fist-height off the ground).
4. Be able to count 5 friends who are important to me, with whom I am actively involved in nurturing a friendship (i.e. distant old friends I email 3 times a year don’t go on this list).
5. Be more consistent in practicing kind behaviors toward family (call M once a week, spend a little time on the phone with V at least once every two weeks, make a dinner and watch TV with T at least bi-weekly).
6. Get my cumulative GPA in grad school above 3.7.
7. Be more conscious/mindful about my procrastination habit: recording for each assignment this fall: deadline, time of beginning work, time of finishing work, and submission time. Keep a little notebook for these recordings and also write about feelings of avoidance when I am consciously procrastinating.
8. Do the Artist’s Way all the way through, but cut myself slack if it takes longer than 12 weeks.
9. Achieve objective, measurable improvements in brain health by the end of the year (by means listed in my 43t goals), as measured by performance on lumosity cognitive processing assessments.

I am recommitting.
Here’s the NEW AND IMPROVED (realistic) top 10 goals to be achieved by the end of this life-change year.

10. Work out a minimum of 60 minutes every day for 90 consecutive days (if I do it, it will be the first time in my life. I mean, maybe there was a period around age 1 1/2 when I was pretty active every day, crawling around, but not since then, so that would signify a hugely different lifestyle).

9. Be able to jog 1 hour without stopping to walk/catch breath and do 10 true push-ups (good form, chest fist-height off the ground)

8. Have 10 friends whom I have known for more than 3 months (I matter to them and they matter to me – people who would invite me to their wedding if they got married, or vice versa)

7. End the year with a cumulative GPA in grad school of 3.6 or better.

6. Have increased awareness of my procrastination (focused awareness helps dissolve even deeply ingrained patterns) by recording for every assignment of the fall term the following: assignment deadline, time of beginning work, time of finishing work, Rate of Perceived Exertion on the assignment (1-10), and submission date/time. To this end also track my time beginning to get ready to leave the house and time of arrival at meetings and classes, to include chronic lateness patterns in the data set.

5. Complete the Artist’s Way 12 week program all the way through, but give myself 10 days per chapter

4. Have 90+ consecutive days of abstinence from sugar (except what’s naturally in fruits and veggies), alcohol and refined flour (whole grains allowed)

3. Improve my brain health as measured by performance on some cognition test (still trying to figure out what testing instrument to use – I’m doing some research but if anyone knows of a good cognitive test that I could do once every week or two to observe trends, please offer suggestions)

2. Have a healthier, more loving, forgiving and generous attitude toward my family

1. Be in a good place, emotionally, feeling optimistic and reasonably at peace with myself on all my favorite chronic discontent and self-recrimination topics: writing, body image, slothfulness/laziness, housekeeping habits, career direction, social life and romantic prospects.

Oooooh. I just came up with that one and I like it! I don’t think I’ve ever had a goal of just getting comfortable with how I’m doing, resolving the torment about it, rather than trying constantly to resolve the perceived problems. The shift in perspective really hit a YES nerve in my gut. Yes…

Here, the vision I depicted of my totally different life, and progress report – 9 months in… I will say, I’m giving myself until the end of 2009 on this goal. All’s fair in love and goal setting.

My situation next year:

• Have a more harmonious lifestyle, clean out my clutter and the clutter at mom’s, be rid of many of these books and old papers and old clothes and redundant furniture. There is progress here. More to be done, but there’s progress. Most stuff out of mom’s storage, many things tossed. After this weekend, even more will be tossed, donated or given away.

• Keep a tidy apartment, so that I could have anyone over. Work on routines and cleaning habits.

• Cook nutritious meals 4 or 5 times a week – have a steady rotation of healthy meals that I make well. Fair. Cooking definitely more, but still need to work on healthier staples.

• Pay credit card debt. REALLY need some help here. I simply need more work. That needs to be a goal. And stay on top of invoicing. Be a good self-employer.

• Be toned and weigh less than 140lbs and be a REGULAR exerciser, 3-5 times a week every week without belaboring the decision and falling off the wagon after each burst. It’s not happening. The exercise is a real challenge for me. The diet is periodically easier. Got under 140 for a while. Back up to 148 now. The exercise is clearly a critical goal.

• Be in school, successfully completing my masters and developing a professional network of contacts. Have a stronger discipline and work ethic, and get ready to start a great job – feeling confident and skilled and qualified. I am in school. I am doing reasonably okay. I need to work harder. The discipline isn’t there yet. I haven’t done any networking. I need to do that.

• Minimize school debt by continuing to work part time on projects outside of school, and maybe also as a contractor or freelancer in some respect if I feel ready for that. Or, I should say, I WANT to feel READY for that by this time next year. The debt is escalating and there is little work to be had. It’s theoretically possible, by this fall, that I could TRY to start getting some work if I really focus between now and then on serious learning. This is another goal that needs specific attention.

• Have some friends who matter to me, and to whom I matter. Have friendships that are gratifying, where when I need someone to talk to I can think of someone to call, and when they need someone to talk to, they think of me, too. Where we visit each other and/or go out and do fun things together. Fun, supportive, consistent friendships. I have one great friendship that’s really blossomed this year and I’m proud of myself for nurturing it. I have another that’s fallen by the way-side, but I hope it will rekindle when she moves to Boston. I need to make some more friends, but I’m happy with some progress.

• Be in a healthy relationship with a great guy. Or, at least, feel positive and optimistic toward the possibility of love. Enjoy dating and feel good about myself as a woman. Well, hell! I went to Italy! I have enjoyed dating. It’s still a work in progress, but I do feel better about myself than I did last year – and certainly, CERTAINLY, I have freed myself from the thrall of years with Mr.BadNoWrongStopTurnBackNow. Good. Progress.

• Be comfortable with and excited and confident about the idea that I am ready and can manage (physically, emotionally, financially) to bring a child into my life – whether it’s with someone or on my own. Another urgent message from my unconscious the other night. I need to keep this goal in front of me. It’s a real hyper-focusing issue.

I don’t feel on track, so it’s time to do another survey of the landscape of my life and where I’m trying to get to.

Again, I really think maybe I need visuals. Maybe a vision board (which feels like such a chore to have to work on) is really a necessary kind of road map for a person who thinks visually and has a hard time holding objectives steadily in mind. Which I clearly do.

Here were my goals from a while ago, for hitting by my birthday, with a progress report:

OBJECTIVES FOR DEC 31, 2008

• Run 1 hour
  (not going to happen – currently on a 6-week unbroken gymless streak)
• Strong, fit, toned – Drop body fat percentage by 5%
  (not a chance – I’ve gained since I made that goal)
• Credit card debt (unfortunately can’t be eliminated. Just did the calculations today) reduced by $3G
  (ALRIGHT! Completed this last week. I’ve paid off $3G)
• Have new apartment near school in Boston – tidy and organized and ready for me to start school in a state of non-CHAOS.
  (on track with this, too. Found a lovely place and will be moving in by Jan 2 if not a couple days earlier.
• Be enrolled in school
  (YUP. I have my schedule and everything.)
• All of Rob’s remaining stuff out of my place, out of my storage, out of my mom’s garage. Gone. No remaining strings.
  (No progress on this one, yet.)
• One really rough draft of a novel COMPLETED!
  (Quit NaNo half way through… I did get some writing done, and have been continuing to work out plot ideas… at least I’m still thinking about it. I hope I’ll do a little more actual writing before my birthday. It’d be nice to feel some momentum about it.)

Overall I guess I’m batting 500 or so. Which isn’t that bad.

RIght…. have a totally different life by this time next year.

I’m not feeling particularly methodical lately. I had in mind initially that I would do a periodic survey of the landscape of my life and match it up against the charts and timelines I’d created (so joyfully, because I do love charts and timelines) at the beginning of this goal…

But I’m just not into surveys and charts right now.

However, I did think today that I should make an update post on how things are going, vaguely.

So, first a couple months ago I had the session with the EFT therapist whom I couldn’t afford to see again after that…

Then some lovely communion energy with 43T’ers started to blow around, and some moon rituals happened. That was good. And inevitably the coven rustled up like a lovely animal out of a sleepy landscape, took form, and became official.

And today “jane pride” was coined as a term that seems always to have wanted to exist somewhere and was just WAITING to be named.

All in all. I don’t know about the facts and figures of my progress at the moment, but I think that as of Nov. 6, just a little over a month into this goal, really good things are happening.

I AM enrolled in school now, to begin on January 20th. so that was one MASSIVELY important element of this life-change goal.

I DID get the last of the money Roberto owed me and so no longer have that particular tie to him (all that’s left is one legal issue to resolve… some charges to drop… and getting him to agree on a timeline for getting his things out of my storage and my mom’s storage).. so that’s another big one.

And lastly, I did hit my all-year low weight so far of 138.4… NEARLY 30 LBS SINCE MY LAST BDAY!

Oh and god let me not forget! (not like this is my own personal life change but still) WE’LL HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT AND BUSH WILL BE GONE AND HIS EVIL ENERGY WILL BE GONE AND THIS IS GOING TO BE A WHOLE NEW YEAR FOR US ALL!!!!

Thing are going ridiculously well, I say.

OH! and I’m working on my NaNo. Working very hard… I’m about 3000 words behind still but I made a good deal of good progress on character and plot notes today, so that’s good.

Talked to my mom today and she was very interested to hear more about the comment I’d made at dinner on sunday about recent therapeutic spiritual searching. Gave her the low down. She still wants very much for me to have a real therapist, but as I can’t afford it right now she’s all for this new good energy.

I credit all this to my 43T friends. Seriously. All of it. Every last good thing is because of my friends here. So, just thought I should say so.

Thanks you friends. You can’t imagine what a stupendously good thing you are. :)

This was written on a plane. I was going on a 2 week vacation and laying out my objectives for how to spend it:

I have a few hopes for myself in the next two weeks:

First, that I become inspired and reawakened and recommitted to the process of writing. (1a. that I begin a story, article, novel, play, anything, which I can continue to work on and cultivate into an application for some kind of creative writing program or workshop.)

Second, that I exercise often and hard, and make a big dent in becoming the fitter, sexier self I plan to be on my 33rd birthday.

Third, that I come up with a plan for the next 12 weeks before my birthday – and for the coming years.

That’s all, really. I need, want and am determined to get onto a path I can feel good about, passionate about.”

[Any of this sound familiar to anyone? The 12-week plan I came up with last month?? The fitter, sexier self I would be on my birthday?? The lofty writing aspirations?]

“All the things that God would have us do are HARD for us to do. And, hence, he oftener commands us than endeavors to persuade – and if we obey god, we must disobey ourselves. And it is in this disobeying ourselves wherein the hardness of obeying God consists.” – from Moby Dick

Came across this tonight while looking for the writing I had done on that vacation. I remembered some bits of it feeling pretty good and I thought I’d try to dig it up to see what it might be worth.

My reaction to the fact that this journal entry was virtually IDENTICAL to the goals I’ve set myself here, two years later, wasn’t the same funky, dejected, discouraged reaction I had a couple weeks ago.

Instead, somehow this time I was reassured. I realize that when I wrote these goals, I meant them, just as I mean them now. But, I FORGOT them. After I had written them and gone on the vacation and come back and written other journal entries about being stuck and worried and unclear and fighting with Rob and needing money, and having rats in the apartment and the car’s window getting smashed and my beautiful fountain pen that I’d bought myself in 1999 and written with all these years being stolen… And needing to move.. and moving and not having enough work and more fighting and sleeping too much and drinking too much and finding out about infidelities…

Time passes. You get a bright moment of clarity in a still time on an airplane in between two chaotic worlds. The airplane lifts you out of your life and you get your moments of clarity and calm and you write, okay, this is the best thing for me. And you write it with all your best intentions.

And then you land again and things happen.

So, what am I trying to say…? I guess I was reassured, rather than disappointed, because I thought, at every bright moment of clarity, I come to the same conclusions. Just like on every clear night the constellations keep their same shapes. You just have to look up, and there they are.

It made me feel like…. even though I spend my life flopping around in muck, whenever I look up, I see the same bright possibility beckoning. The idea of health, the idea of writing, becoming creative and inspired, making a good plan, getting sure footed onto a path toward a worthy future. The fact that I keep saying I want to do these things and haven’t gotten there yet doesn’t mean I’ve failed. I’m just still down here in the muck, and the stars are still up there reassuring me that I am meant to get out of the muck, that I can get out of the muck.

It was a completely different take on the experience of finding an old journal. A totally different perspective.

I also really love that Melville quote. LOVE it. I’m going to put it somewhere where I can see it everyday.

It is hard, doing what you are meant to do, what you want to do. It’s hard.

I also realize how critically important REMEMBERING your feeling of focus and desire and intention is. It’s so easy to FORGET! Every day I wake up and have forgotten and have to remind myself of what’s important. And even when I remind myself I can’t remember why it’s so important, because I’m blue or stuck or bored or lonely or overwhelmed or confused. Everything everything everything conspires to distract you from looking up. You have to work very hard to remind yourself CONSTANTLY.

Vision board…. I gotta do it….

• Be enrolled in school

Got my acceptance letter today. I’m ambivalent still, about this grad program. It’s a very small/unknown program in a field that I’m just really not sure I WANT to pursue. I mean, I’ve been doing this boring work for 9 years. Do I REALLY want to get a masters so I can do MORE of it, when I’ve never really enjoyed it? I dunno. I’ve gone through these debates for so many years. I think I just need to take this acceptance and go with it. I need a career. I need to be able to get a job at a salary that will allow me to have some kids and support them as a single mom if that’s what I choose to do. I need to be able to BRING HOME THE BACON and COOK IT UP IN A PAN! A masters will let me do that…

So, I’m going to go ahead and commit. The fact that my brother is going to do the program with me will help me stay on course and stay focused and complete it.

AND – drum roll pleeeease….. – I got a 50% scholarship as a result of my GRE score! Free money! I don’t have to do anything for it, just show up and maintain a 3.0 GPA. TA DA!!!!!!! dun da da da da da dun dun dun dun da da daaaaaaa!!! (that sounds more musical in my head than it looks on screen.)

Here’s what I figure. The lesson, the “take away,” is: be willing to fail again. Keep going, because what else is there to do? Try again. Pick yourself up and try again.

Yesterday was unproductive. So today I forced myself out of bed by 9AM! Only to feel drowsy and crawl back in at 9:30.

I re-emerged at 10:30, messed around online… then started writing “morning pages” around noon. I still haven’t made it a regular habit.

I looked at the 12-week plan I’d set for myself a week and a half ago and realized that nothing I’d planned to accomplish in the first week was done, which left all the following weeks looking impossible. So I set to writing in my morning pages about how I make plan after plan and action never follows.

I got distracted then, writing about how I ought to do this and that, jumped up and suddenly needed to tend to one thing, and then needed to find something to do with that thing, and couldn’t find it, and while searching for the other thing came across an old journal.

Old journals, usually about 1/4 filled, are always cropping up to mock me. In various baskets and boxes, on bookshelves, in the storage room.

I start one, lose it, start another, find the first. This annoys me – that I don’t have nice organized journals. Maybe I think if THEY were organized it would make their content (my life) seem like it has a shape and order and story to it.

Some are themed: “Gratitudes,” “Accomplishments” (a big fat pretty one, with 6 pages used), “weight, diet, fitness plans.” Others are randomly begun on random days, talking about the current state of affairs. Speaking to my future self, describing the state of affairs: “So here it is, June 30th, I am 29 1/2 years old today… ” “November 9th, 2005, Today is the 15 year anniversary of the accident.”

I usually scan a few pages when I find one. I don’t know what insight or nostalgia I’m expecting. It’s always the same thing.

For every journal I’ve kept since age 8, there are aspirations and affirmations and “write it down make it happen” sorts of pledges, “visioning sessions,” PLANS, with dates. Supposedly, that’s how you become one of the productive people. You WRITE DOWN your specific, concrete, measurable goals and you make PLANS and you be sure to provide DATES.

By age X: hot body, awesome butt, lose 10 lbs, make some friends, a career, I need a career, a home I love, tidyness, marriage, LOVE, creativity, a family, a baby….

So it was with the journal I found today, from 2003.

And another I found down in the storage room not 30 minutes later, from 2005.

Calendars, timelines, even sketches of myself as I’d like to be, muscular and skinny or wedding-gown-clad with a sweetheart neckline or whatever. All this mental effort and time and carefulness and detail.

I always believed that if you could just envision it, and describe it to yourself vividly, make S.M.A.R.T. goals, and convince yourself of the TRUTH and virtue and attainability of the goal… then you could get yourself to the promised land.

Evidently, it takes more than that.

It’s 2008, now, nearly 2009… (this sounds exactly like the beginning of a new journal), and it’s heartbreaking. It’s breaking my heart to look at these pages. Hundreds of them, maybe thousands written since age 8, all saying the same thing, over and over and over. So many earnest or exuberant pages of I WILL HAVE A LIFE! and not one thing different between then and now.

Little things, sure. I live in a new place, Rob is FINALLY more or less out of my life (that was a plan I’d made starting 4 goddamn years ago “This fall I will do it.”(2004) “Before my birthday.”(2005) “Why have I forgiven him again?”(2006) “Valentine’s day is my deadline.”(2007) At least, at the very least that’s one thing that’s finally accomplished.

Still, NONE of the other life areas that I continually vowed to change has budged. Not a bit. My job has been the same P/T paycheck-to-paycheck, barely covering expenses and saving nothing job for 9 years. 9 YEARS. From 25 to 34. I didn’t grow or learn new skills or take on new responsibilities or gain mastery at anything. I graduated from a top notch school and this was all I managed with the first half of my adult life, to be someone’s part-time work-from-home assistant, with no health insurance and no savings. I can’t even imagine what my father would have thought if he’d lived to see this.

It’s shameful is what it is. Shameful. It’s wrong-headed. This is no life.

Yet I live this non-life, day after day, every day roughly the same, and somehow, it just goes on. I keep saying, I can’t live like this. And then I do, for one more day.

walking in circles from the bedroom to the living room to the kitchen and back. Browsing the internet. Watching TV. Feeling vaguely that I ought to get on the ball and do something… maybe tidy up, read a book to its end, apply for a few jobs, start working out.

If I can just get in shape, things will change! I’ll start right away. Everything is going to change. Let me start a new journal. Let me make a plan. I’m going to start WRITING AGAIN! Let me start the artist’s way, let me make a STRUCTURE! A structure is what I need… And then the journal stops and 200 blank pages flip by, representing what? Another blank year, maybe? The real record of my life? The truth?

Another journal starts with enthusiasm, and then blankness again.

It’s as if all the notebooks are actually filled. They’re like the art installations with blank canvases, or the Beckett play involving nothing but a sigh. Fully representative of how life really is: boring and disheartening as hell.

So, I’m in a funk. (Can you tell?) A major goddamn funk. It feels approximately like this:

I am reminded of the case of H.M. He has had brain surgery to fix a seizure disorder, and afterward can no longer form long-term memories. He knows who he is and about his life before, but he can only hold on to the last few minutes of short-term memory. He can’t remember what he did yesterday or even this morning, ever again.

So, H.M. does nothing but journal to remind himself of his life. Mundane things. What he’s eaten for breakfast, that he fetched the mail, who knows what. It’s the same jottings about, essentially, the same day. Page after page, notebook after notebook.

Is that me?

Is there’s something wrong with me? There’s got to be something wrong. I don’t know what it is – whether it’s something wrong with my brain, or some psychological issue from my childhood. How is it possible that this is my life? All these pointless scribblings?

I want to be hopeful. I want to believe that eventually I’ll find the key, the courage to DO something, to move beyond pondering and planning into Action. But, the journals all talk about that hope. I’ve given myself Rah Rah Rah talks and reassurances a million times. THIS time. THIS time! THIS TIME!!! it will be different.

Every time, I convince myself. It’s a brilliant new angle on changing my ways, a perfect new system, a method, an escape. A way out of this life into that other life. A way of making the leap!

Every time, the impetus to act, follow through, obey my own suggestions, is absent. Any plan could have worked. I just keep slipping away from myself, out of my own grasp. Forgetting myself. Letting laziness win.

It’s like a long drowning. Moments of bright clarity, a big gasp of air, a lot of thrashing around and ebullient HOPE! journal journal journal! Followed by dreamless confused blub-blub-blubbing, cursing at the phone when it rings and waiting for it to stop, cuddling with the cats, rooting through the refrigerator and cabinets. Another burst through the surface, more timelines and convictions. And silence again.

Is this life? A long drowning that will end when I eventually stop thrashing back up and let go for good the idea of having a life?

If so, does it matter? Billions of people have walked the earth. Surely in the grand scheme people don’t really matter. Maybe I could get comfortable with the fact that I don’t matter and that I’m just going to muddle through, the way most people have done since the beginning of time. Maybe I could relax and accept it. It’s bearable. It’s completely bearable. Like spending 60 or 70 years in a waiting room until you keel over.

What kind of a life is that? God this makes me mad. At least I could be having some fun while I’m here. Venture out the door. Go out into the hallway. See if there’s anyone to fall in love with or something. Anything at all to do…

So how do I change? How do I make anything be different? I ask this again, for the n+1^th time.

Is my crumpled up little forgetable life, tucked away in this apartment among these dusty collections of self-help books and journals and messy dishes and laundry on the floor my life? Is this really what my existence is for? That’s it? It’s a joke!

The sort of joke where people say, don’t joke about that, it’s not funny.

That’s where I’m at today. This mood will pass. Of course it will. I’ll be cracking open a brand new journal and uncapping a spanking new pen any minute now!

Apologies for the long note. In case you are subscribed to me and it’s taking up space that could have been filled with something uplifting. Apologies for being a downer. No one likes a downer. I learned that in high school.

It’s okay. It’ll be okay. I’ve got my new moon calendar going… things are going to change this time. I’m different. I’ve learned from my mistakes. I know better how not to do it. Success only happens when you’re willing to fail one more time. I have to make myself willing, again, faithful and hopeful and willing to try. A man can fail many times, but he’s not a failure until he gives up. (From a recent fortune cookie.)

Okay GODS! oh spirits! oh crinkly strings of teensy tiny vibrating nothingness that make being BE! HEY YOU! Something BIGGER THAN MYSELF! Down here. Help me. Help me find a way to matter, to myself, at least.

Please.