(I was working on this new years day before my power went out and my tree fell down, but find that it’s worth posting)

It’s another new year. 2005 is behind me, and god, does it need to be.

Some day I may write about all the things that went badly off track in my life this last year, or better yet, some day it will filter back out in the form of fiction, turned backwards or inside out or distilled or exaggerated. If the fiction is anywhere near as good as the stories that drive it, be ready to buy my novel.

But now it’s a new year. And I don’t make new year’s resolutions (or maybe I just don’t keep new year’s resolutions). Yet, there are things I want, need, from this meaningless turn of a calendar page.

I need to take care of myself. For too many years of my life I’ve given up everything. I need to focus on my own sanity and my body. My health, physical and mental.

I need to focus on my job. For too much of the last year I’ve fooled around and coasted. I used to be a pretty good engineer. I used to be the glue that holds it all together at work, the way I am at home.

I need to be more open with my friends. I hide too much, I build walls. The people who truly know me could be counted on one hand with fingers left over. I need to not be afraid to hurt. Physical pain is nothing to me, but when I open my heart a knife goes through it. I need to not fear that.

I need to strive for what I want, and not ever give up. The HOLD FAST tattoo on my hands mean that; like joe pike in robert crais’ elvis cole novels, who has arrows on his shoulders meaning never give ground, never retreat, never back up, I need to stand and fight. I can have what I want, it’s out there to be taken. I must take it, and not let life’s small obstacles defeat me. I must look you in the eye and tell you how I feel, each one of you that really matters to me.

2004 was a year of glory and love and friendship; 2005 was it’s inverse, a year where I could feel my soul being flayed, where I could feel the things I wanted, needed, slipping between my fingers, evaporating like smoke. I won’t see another year like 2004 in the near future, and yet, if I do not see another year like ’05, that will be ok.

It’s only the turn of a page, a digit, another day. Yet the year turns and marks a unit of time that defines an incredibly bad series of events, bad choices, bad times, bad feelings. It needs to be over and I need to find a way to make my life what I want it to be, rather than what it’s been made for me.

Hello, 2006.