I headed into 2011 with a fairly positive attitude. Throughout the last few weeks of 2010, I found myself full of hope and maybe even a sense of purpose, and I couldn’t wait to get started on this new year. Well, I made it a few days into the new year with this attitude intact. But apparently it was a false bravado. I won’t go into details about what upended me. All I really wanted to mention was that I had a hard crash this morning. I wound up on the couch under a blanket, trying to wriggle into the dark creases where I might slip away on the shadows. But, as it usually goes, I came out the other side, the world was still there, and I was beginning to feel like I could breathe again.
I’m no fool. We have a hard road ahead of us. Some of the things that are likely to fall upon us in the next couple of months are simply unspeakable. But I refuse to be dragged down by the ghosts of the past, or be reminded of the things I didn’t do when I should have. Yesterday is gone. All we have is today and tomorrow. That’s where I’m going to focus my energies. I have to. In a lot of very real ways, that’s all I’ve got.
There are resolutions for the new year.
First and foremost among them is that I need to stop letting myself be derailed. I’m bad enough on my own when it comes to jumping from one unfinished project to the next and back again, but I’m too easily dissuaded from the things which I know in my heart will be successful. Some seeds take longer to grow than others. And although I fully understand that our immediate need is dire, if certain seeds are not planted, there won’t be much of a future to look forward to. We can’t continue to sacrifice tomorrow’s possibilities on the pyre of today’s necessities.
I need work. The many jobs I’ve applied to have rendered no fruit. But I have to keep trying, and hope that sooner or later I’ll find employment. Honestly, I don’t know how to get these people to offer me work. I used to be of the opinion that if I could get the interview, I would get the job. But that’s not turning out to be true now, whether that’s because of age, appearance of just luck of the draw. The few interviews I’ve landed have gone over like prison work release reviews. I can see it in their eyes that they’ve made up their minds about me before we even get started, and the interview is just a formality that they have to get out of the way so they can move on to the next guy. How do you combat that? Well, one thing that’s been weighing on my heart is the creeping realization that maybe I need to create my own job. When you can’t find a job, why not start a business? Is that really so crazy? We talk a lot about how we’re smart and creative and should be able to find a way to make a living using our talents, but we always blanch when it comes time to jump from the proverbial airplane. We want to believe, but we don’t seem to.
There are a lot of other issues that need to be addressed. I’m not going to go through an itemized list. But I went into 2011 with a renewed determination to address these problems and be more proactive. All I really need now from the gallery is a chance to move forward. Hopefully I’ll be afforded a little wiggle room.
I went to a really dark place this morning and still feel the tendrils of it wafting off behind me when I move. I haven’t had that hard of a crash in some time. Maybe I put on my rose-colored glasses for 2011 and was thinking that a positive attitude was all that I needed to move forward and make some things happen, but there has to be at least a little truth in the old platitude that “attitude is everything”. I’ve spent too much of my life waiting for everything to blow up in my face.
I’m painfully aware of what my failures were in 2010, but I’m determined to not make those mistakes again. Sure, I know I’ve said these things before. And I’ll say them a hundred more times if I have to, because each time it’s matched with genuine determination. I’m not going to let my future be derailed by my past. I don’t care that I’ve made declarations before which I didn’t follow through on. I can’t go back and change any of that. All I can control is what I do from here on out and how I do it. And if I fail, I’ll try again. And if I fail again, I’ll try again. And again.
Sooner or later I’ll get it right.
