Holocene.

You know those days when you wake up, start going, and suddenly realize that you should have stayed in bed?

I've had about a week of them.  A week of days that should not have been.  

So here I am, standing in the kitchen, cooking and sipping wine and thinking about everything that's gone wrong and right- over the past few days and over a much longer time.  I am thinking about the past, the present, the future.  I am considering good days, bad days, days that made me stronger and days that nearly killed me.  

And standing here, I'm listening to music that is guaranteed to make me cry- music that defined the bruised time, the time when I became a walking corpse, a non-thing.  This is the music that was the soundtrack to my pain.  This is the music I used to weep to, to fall asleep to every night- night after night after night.  

Why am I listening to it? Why am I thinking all of these things?

Because it's good to remember.  When forgetting is too easy, it's all the more important to remember.  It's important to remember the wrong, to relive it from time to time, to shock yourself with the pain of  badness.  

The bite of brutal memories makes the fight so much stronger.  

I'm not a perfect person.  I'm not even remotely close to it.  I have lost count of all of the stupid things I've done, the people I've let down, the people who have let me down.  I haven't forgotten any of them, though, even if I deliberately attempt to keep them out of my mind.  

So why am I thinking, listening, remembering?

Because the bad makes the good better.

Resolved.

I don't really do New Years Resolutions.

To be fair, I don't usually do New Years (Eve) unless you count sitting on the couch, surrounded by dogs, watching bad movies as "doing New Years (Eve)."  There's something annoying about it to me, something arbitrary.  Every day is, technically, the beginning of a new year.  So why is this one evening, into one midnight, into one day, so much more significant than any other?

I digress.

Similarly, however, I don't think you need one specific day out of the year to decide to change your life, your tune, your whatever.  I don't dig on resolutions.  Pick a day, pick a moment, pick a minute in time to commit to, and you can change.  You just have to stick to it.  I don't see the point in torturing yourself into a smaller pant size, a more courageous lifestyle, a more intensive work-out routine... just because everyone else has decided to something similar on the same day.

That's just silly.

But, before you all write me off as a curmudgeon and a Scrooge, let me tell you what I think of the new year so far.  I think it's going to be a really good year.  I do.  While that is uncharacteristically positive of me, I'm going to stand by it.  Sitting at home yesterday, indulging in a Game of Thrones marathon, snuggled in between the husband and the puppy, I thought about the year that had come and gone and the year that is coming up.  I thought about all the things I have been through, and will go through soon enough.  And for some incomprehensible reason, I could not help but be really excited about "the Future" (another arbitrary term).

I guess in my own way, that's resolution enough for me.

To make the year as good as I think it can be.  Nothing too specific there, no easy way to utterly fail at it, just pull my weight for a good year.

A Great Year.

And so, a couple of days late... Happy New Year, All.

And until next time, Be Good.