Goals. in What happens now?

I used to journal really heavily in high school (Free open diary dot com anyone?) and at the time I really felt great about it. It helped me unwind and de-stress and relax. I’ve always carried that experience with me since then, the idea that journaling was this beautiful, therapeutic thing that I could always fall back on when I needed it. It’s a beautiful thought, like an emergency aid-kit pick up in a video game. Things get rough, fall back on it - all better. Continue shooting people. Or slaying dragons. Or whatever flavor of video game you’re playing (See that, future me? I’m playing Far Cry 4 currently and Dragon Age: Inquisition - so many details, so fun!) has you do.

But lo’ and behold, I think the magic left me a long time ago. I’ve probably killed a good amount of trees in buying all the blank, seldom used journals I keep at home. It goes like this: I go to a book store, stumble into the journal area, inevitably see/feel something (yes, the feel of the pages has a lot to do with it) that makes me think: this is it. This is the one that is going to be such a joy to hold and write on that I’ll get back to keeping regular entries. Before I know it, I’ll be walking back in here to buy a new journal while I stuff this completed little time capsule away. And before I step away from this point, how cringey is going back and reading stuff you thought was “Deep” or even important back then? Sad to say, I think that’s the most valuable thing to me in journaling. I love it. I love laughing at myself. It makes me sad that I don’t have my journals from middle or high school.

Then of course there’s the totally serious “keeping a log of important shit I’ll want to think back on some day in clear detail” thing. So there’s that.

But besides that, why start it up again? Primarily is the fact that 2014 flew right past before I realized what the fuck had happened. Yeah, another year done. It’s getting kind of scary fast as I get older. I remember the summer being impossibly far away from January. I remember it taking ages. But now, it feels like it’s just a matter of blinks, a matter of deep breaths or sighs and there we are, break out the swim trunks. I hope writing regularly slows that down a little gives me more time to taste, smell and feel the year before it’s totally gone. Or at the very least present me with clearer memories of what it was like. It’s also a time when everyone talks about resolutions.

I hate talking about or making new years resolutions because historically I’ve been terrible at it - have something like one successful one out of however many I’ve managed to make for the last 20 years. And I can’t even remember what the success was…maybe I just really wanted a success real bad and started lying about it. Who knows?

So, I have a few goals this year. No resolutions, no deadlines (except for one of them, because Erica gets married in May and I wanna’ look fly as fuck) just some shit I want to get done this year. Here they are, in no particular order:

1. Since Erica is getting married in May, I’ll finally make a centralized, concentrated effort to lose the weight I’ve been talking about for the last few months. I got a real good start in October and lost close to 10 pounds thanks to regular Muay Thai classes, but that was just a start. I’m going to stick with it and go from 3 classes a week to 5. Thanks, flexible new job! And I just want to stress that this isn’t for health or wellness reasons. I just want to look fly as fuck. For Erica’s wedding. In May.

2. Speaking of muay thai, I want to step up my muay thai game during 2015. In the last few months I’ve been able to move out of the beginner realm and into “intermediate” according to my instructor, so I’lll just keep at it. I’m going to improve my lead leg round kicks. Just you watch. Ush!

3. I originally wanted to buy a house by the end of this summer but it doesn’t look like it’s happening. I’m resetting the clock on this one. I’m going to be in a position to buy a house by this time next year. Start pinching those pennies.

4. Surprise my wife and my dog with something nice at least once every few weeks. Either dinner or flowers for the wife or a random snack or chew toy for my dog. Because everyone loves surprises.

5. Get really spooky crazy good at my job. I’m fortunate enough to have a wonderful job with wonderful colleagues and bosses that gives me an unprecedented amount of freedom…so long as I get my shit done. So, I want to be really amazing at it. This time next year, I want to be posting about how great my promotion and pay raise is.

6. Rest easy knowing that when people do really bad things to other people, bad things happen to them. It’s called karma and it usually does a pretty good at settling the scores that need settling. Looking at you, you-know-who. Your “misfortune” from the other day makes me happy because your “treat people like shit/objects/shitty objects” way of life has backfired on you. Again. And you’re not sure why. And that’s kind of shitty of me, too. But I think you had it coming.

There you have it. Hopefully the first of many to come.

See you next year, beautiful.