Christmas Ramble

[Yes, there's been Christmas shopping, too much drinking (including a last attendance at the Friendly Neighboorhood Cabaret Around The Corner, due to shut its doors after the new year), a couple of movies, a guy or two, and the new job (click click click, dammit!). I still need to get one more gift for the Niece Audrey, wrap a lot of shit, and get over to the East Bay by about four this afternoon to hang with my family for the next two days.]

[What am I thinking about this Christmas Eve day, though? Well, it occurs to me that it's been four years since I did the hardest thing I've ever had to do. I wrote then that you'd never read anything against John on this blog, and I'm pretty sure I've kept to that. (Reading GayProf's musings on his Liar Ex Who Told Many Lies is what's got me on this kick, I guess.) But as necessary as that step was (and by no means did the events surrounding that announcement mark the end of the breakup process - dear God, no), Christmas 2003 marked the start of a very tough few years. It's as though that one good decision used up my quota for good choicemaking for the rest of the mid-'00s.]

[Some of my more perceptive readers (I'm looking at you, MyGregory) seemed to have had an uncanny ability to see whether I was going thru a good period or a very bad one by how my writing changed here, even though I haven't written about most of the bad stuff I've put myself thru in the past few years. I'm not about to put it all out here now, either, because as MyG noted the other night, my style here has been morphing lately as if I'm writing for an audience. Maybe putting up that Feedjit widget has something to do with it, or maybe it's working at Red Room. I don't know.]

[I do know that I feel like I'm finally coming out of whatever deep dark place I entered four years ago. I still make stupid, thoughtless choices - inconsiderate of others, destructive to myself, wasteful of all the gifts I've been given. But moving in with Chris and Elisabeth, getting this job, quitting... high fructose corn syrup... yeah. The last five months are characterized by friends coming out of the woodwork to help me help myself, and I am so grateful, and also proud of myself for largely not dropping the ball. It's never a given that when tossed the ball that you won't bobble the catch. I know.]

[Next steps... wait, before I go there, let me own up to the fact that about a year ago I was feeling optimistic because I started a regime of antidepressants. I didn't really give them a chance, but that's not the point. I've made defiant statements of optimism here before, I know, and so take this one with whatever grain of salt you want.]

[Anyway, I may actually make the most cliched New Year's resolution and go on a major diet and exercise regimen next. As someone told me last night, the disruptive holidays make such a discipline almost impossible. I seem to have packed on about twenty pounds that weren't there a year ago, and I've noticed that overdoing it on food and drink isn't providing the easy solace it once did. Mostly headache, indigestion and tightening clothes, actually. No rest for the weary... no, that's not true. I don't feel particularly weary right now. I feel kind of energized. It's weird, but I'm looking forward to 2008.]

[Merry Christmas, everyone.]

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