I’m probably one of the few to say this, but while 2009 was shitty for me and many others…in the end it wasn’t that bad. After awhile, for every crappy depressing shitty frustrating thing that happened to me this year, there were a lot of good things to come out of it, a lot of lifelong lessons, and some new minds to share and discuss past experiences.

I have a lot of good lessons that will come out of this year on top of good memories.  When I move forward I will choose not to forget the bad things that happened in the past but to embrace the lessons that I learned coming out of those situations, and one day I’ll look back on this year and remember that it was the year of lessons, for me, for my friends, for everyone.

In no way am I trying to be hopelessly optimistic and say at least I got a few good lessons out of this year, because let’s face it: a LOT of shitty things happened this year.  But in the face of those situations I decided to change my outlook and humble myself more to the things around me; I don’t want to force myself to suffer anymore.  If we, as humans are meant to suffer then why should we make it any more difficult on ourselves than it already is?

When I suffer now, I push back harder against the nonexistent pain and cynical scenarios I make up in my head, and I face the reality that not everyone’s out to ruin me.  There are so many things these days that I can do to make myself happy, little things even: cleaning, making small crafts, video games, reading, working out, knitting and crochet…even when I’m feeling down I will find something to cheer myself up, because at the end of the night I’m the only person that really deals with me, and I better be able to look at myself in the mirror and not regret anything that’s happened to me so far.

The feeling of accomplishing something by the end of the day outweighs the shitty despondent feeling I used to have all the time.  Let’s toast to another year of lifelong lessons and newfound hobbies.