2015 ended with the death of Lemmy Kilminster, and 2016 decided to greatly increase the number of famous artists I love dying. Starting with David Bowie and ending with Carrie Fisher, people who were influential to my life passed on.
While the world is a poorer place for having so many amazing people no longer in it, their deaths impacted my life minimally. Their deaths might have changed the conversations I had with my friends, but it didn’t change who my friends were, who my family was, nor what job I held.
Over-all for me, as an individual, 2016 was a good year. Early in the year I received a promotion at UPS. I went from a loader to supervisor. While the stress increased, I’m infinitely happier with this job than I was with Enterprise. I have new challenges every day, and I can see the impact I have on the work place. Lorena and I grew closer this year. So much so that we decided to move in together. There have been plenty of new friends, and I don’t feel like I lost contact with any of my old friends.
Over-all for me, as an individual, 2016 was a good year. Early in the year I received a promotion at UPS. I went from a loader to supervisor. While the stress increased, I’m infinitely happier with this job than I was with Enterprise. I have new challenges every day, and I can see the impact I have on the work place. Lorena and I grew closer this year. So much so that we decided to move in together. There have been plenty of new friends, and I don’t feel like I lost contact with any of my old friends.
Only thing I’ve really lost this year was the house I grew up in. My parents decided to move closer to my brother, who lives in Vegas. I got a chance to visit the home of my youth one last time, and I was surprised how much emotion it caused me to say goodbye to that place. But it’s also a place I only saw occasionally. Saying goodbye was hard due to its symbolic nature, but its impact on my actual life is minimal. It gave me a good reason to visit my brother and family in Vegas, and hopefully something I’ll do more of in the upcoming years as well.
I also suffered a knee injury. Out of nowhere, I found myself limping one day. I learned I had microfractures in one of my kneecaps. I had to start going to physical therapy to work on it. Losing the ability to run, at least temporarily, was outright heartbreaking. One of my resolutions for 2016 was to run more, and the injury simply squashed my ability to do that.
Two of my resolutions for this year were about writing. I definitely continued writing, spending much of the year editing the novel I’m hoping to find a publisher for. I also worked on other projects, including continuing Dameon Strykes #1 and a fantasy book. I, unfortunately, did not find an agent. This wasn’t due to my lack of effort, and as such I won’t count it as me failing. I am just going to need to approach this goal in a new manner.
Another goal of mine was to do something for myself. I feel like I accomplished that with things like letting myself have some frivolous pleasures, like Everquest, as well as taking one of my vacation weeks to just do the bare minimum.
Outside of my injury, artists that I enjoyed dying, and election results I don’t even want to talk about, 2016 was a great year for me. I’m hoping I can continue to grow in 2017, and some ways I plan on doing that are:
1. I need to find a professional editor for my book. The major problem I ran into with trying to find an agent was my lack of having it professionally edited. I tried to cut corners and find others to help me edit, but that wasn’t enough. So, after my tax returns, I plan on investing in myself and my dreams.
1. I need to find a professional editor for my book. The major problem I ran into with trying to find an agent was my lack of having it professionally edited. I tried to cut corners and find others to help me edit, but that wasn’t enough. So, after my tax returns, I plan on investing in myself and my dreams.
2. Work on my physical health, specifically my knee. I want to get running again. I want to be active again. I need to watch what I do and do it in moderation, but it's something I can, and will, overcome.
3. Reconnect with friends. This is really something I need to do early on in the year, but every job I’ve had, come mid-November work becomes busier and I close up. There’s a bunch of people out there that I love that I haven’t gotten to see for awhile because of that. I’m already starting to make plans to reconnect.
4. I’d like to find a new place to live. I’d like to find a place I want to call home, even if just temporarily. I moved twice last year, and I’m ready to feel at least a little settled.
5. Be a force of good in the world. With the recent election results, a lot of bad shit is going to happen. While I might not be able to stop the potential nuclear devastation this world may suffer, I can at least stand up for fellow Americans against hate and bigoted laws that, while they may not impact my directly, impact friends, family members, and just other human beings who deserve respect.
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