2013 Review
I got a bunch of Ikea furniture for my birthday last January so I now have a fully furnished home, which gave me a bit of a panic attack about the fact that I can no longer fit my life into a truck and selling my house would be a huge operation. I still haven't quite gotten over that feeling of trepidation at my lack of ability to be transient and run away at the least provocation.
Con-G had our biggest guest yet and announced the end of our operations, to many mixed feelings
In March I went to Boston and attended a ridiculous class on bomb remediation, which was awesome but really not what my coworker thought it was about when he registered for it. Then there was MJ, which was alternately great, intimidating, hilarious, infuriating and intimate ... so exactly what you'd expect from a meeting of 200 fangirls.
My uncle performed a number of renovations on my house in June and it looks great now despite how stressful and frustrating it was trying to work with him. It also added to my feelings of being trapped in my house since I have to live there to appreciate the renos, but oh well.
Calgary flooded right before I flew to New Zealand for a friend's wedding and had a relaxing, cathartic vacation
My field work drought ended with an assignment to run a field treatment facility in Lacombe, which is a surprisingly lovely town to hang out in and one of my favourite assignments yet. The only problem is that it's far away from my friends and family but I found a great butcher nearby thanks to a recommendation from the hotel staff.
In August I managed to get to my cottage and was so gratified and touched at how many of my friends managed to make the time to come out and visit me there. It was a weekend of relaxing, reconnecting and realizing how very much I miss everyone.
In September my roommate moved out
October was finally busy at work and I spent most of it happily running around the province because it was such a nice change after being stuck in the office for 8 months.
In November I got new roommates and spent a memorable weekend in Vancouver because it had been too long since I went. I had such a lovely time eating food, shopping and catching up with a friend who I hadn't caught up with in too long.
December was nice because work was slow enough that I got to concentrate on Christmas with my family.
I had a few resolutions that I remember from last year. Nail biting was one of them. I did okay with that until October. Now it's a write-off. I also resolved to be generally happier. Despite outward appearance, I believe I improved on this point this year. I still have a lot further to go; I should read more self-help books since I renewed my library card today. I resolved to be more fit, which did not really happen, though I do walk to work every day. I don't remember the rest though there were some more and I think it's because they were house-related things that I ended up accomplishing.
At the beginning of this year, I'm in a weird self-defeating kind of mood. I've been feeling inadequate, antisocial and sorry for myself. I do this weird thing sometimes where I push people away seemingly just so I can feel sorry for myself about being lonely and unloved. It's super counterproductive and I don't know why I do it.
I also feel like I'm living my life just waiting for something. I'm not engaged in my work, I love my firends but they all have lives in which my presence is not integral; I've been spending a lot of time at my parents' house - how sad is it that at my age, I try to spend all my time with my Mom because that's when I'm happiest? It's the only time I feel relaxed and motivated to accomplish something. I've noticed before that I get way more done with external recognition.
My coworker sent an e-mail that said that mentally strong people are not jealous of other people's success, do not waste time on self-pity, are driven independent of other people's opinions or validation, are scared of change, waste energy worrying, dwelling on the past or taking failure to heart. Since these qualities practically define me, it was exactly what I needed to feel good about myself at the beginning of a new year #sarcasm
Is it valid to make a resolution to make a resolution? I'm sick of waiting for the answer to happiness to fall into my lap so I should work a bit harder on figuring that out this year. I'm also making some smaller goals like to stretch my hamstrings every day, do a little more cardio and join some type of social group. The first one is the important one though. I need to keep a journal of my food/exercise/sleep/mood/health daily so I can determine the correlation between good days and bad days and maybe that will help.
I need to make the decision about my values independent of the location of friends or the strings attached to home ownership. I don't even know where to start but part of the decision involves figuring out if I need professional help. I feel like if anything were to happen to my parents right now, I wouldn't be able to get through it. I know that's not a fair thing to say with respect to all my friends who have actually been through that but I do feel that way. Knowing how unlikely I am to find a partner and, therefore, have a family, I need to find other sources of value.
For anyone still reading, thanks for being there and sorry to bore you. In other news, The Hobbit 2 was better than the first one, Catching Fire was PERFECT and Frozen made me really, really sad. I have a lot of feelings about Once Upon a Time and Haven.