Annual Blog Post for the New Year

So before I started this blog (I do intend to keep it active, explanation for my absence to come later) I had other blogging sites, mostly the ones dedicated to angsty teen whining. But every single year, starting with the beginning of 2006, I have posted a New Year's post that was a reflection of the year past and a promise for the year to come. 2006 was a big year for me, too; that was when I graduated high school, and was planning to move south for a while.

So here it is! My moved 2012-2013 New Year's Post.

2012 was a pretty big year. It started with me living in Spokane, WA, with Brian and Bonnie. I was working two jobs - one at a community college bookstore, one at Yankee Candle. And pretty miserable living so far from my family and friends. Being with Brian was of course pretty rad, but still. Neither of us were very happy in Spokane.

I was, however, for the first time, actively involved with a theater group, which was pretty damn swell. The SCC Players were pretty much the greatest thing about being in Spokane, and I really miss them, and the group, and acting. Acting itself, of course, could be pretty easily pursued again, but I've let it (temporarily) fall to the side. Just getting involved and going onstage and putting myself out there, though...that was a pretty big deal for me, and I think it's gone a really long way in getting me ready to keep pushing myself out of my comfort zone, and going for things that seem impossible at the time. I more or less auditioned for the first play with the Players on a whim, really super doubted that I would get called back for a part at all because I really didn't know what I was doing, and got kind of hooked immediately after that.

With Brian's parents' help, the two of us moved back across the country to stay temporarily in New York between my family and his for a month and a half, which was the second time we drove across the country together. We're still together to this day, so I think that's a pretty good indication of the strength of our relationship. I don't think I ever really though myself as being capable of driving across the country (twice), or even moving so far away (even if only temporarily), and those are both good milestones that I'm proud of accomplishing, all with my sweetie at my side. We were back in time for my birthday in June to spend with my family, which was wonderful, and we spent the traditional summer vacation with the ENTIRE Waldron clan (including the expanding clan!) at the Bungalow, and that was where Brian proposed. Nobody was surprised. Well, let me clarify: I was surprised at the actual event, but we've both been at that point for a little while, so still a great thing. The planned date is in September 2015, so I've got time to worry about that.

We then moved to Chicago, for Brian to start grad school here. We've been living here since August. I got my first full time job, ever, working at a company that does most of its work online. I'm so grateful for the work, and the more I get the hang of it, the happier I am in the job, I think. It's not the most challenging, but it's good work, and since I'm the head of customer service (it's a very, very small company), I get to meet a lot of interesting people and talk to them. So that's two big life changing whammies right there: Chicago, and just the transition to a real GROWN UP job.

I've also been focusing more and more on my own personal, physical health. I have a pretty big drive to get physically healthy, and by extension mentally healthy, and I have goals like being able to a run a 5K and start doing Parkour and nutso stuff like that, which inspired this blog. So my reason for not updating lately: health complications. And holidays. I'm still recovering from the MYSTERY HIVES that I had to go the ER for two weeks ago, and because of the crazy medley cocktail of drugs I've been on and because of traveling for Christmas, I haven't been to the gym at all in about three weeks. Starting with the new year (timing, I swear) I will be returning, and amping up my focus and drive once more. I have goals, and I'm gonna meet 'em!

In conclusion...2012 was a super big transitory year. Transitions. Some of them were planned and expected, some of them were not. It was tough in a lot of places, but very rewarding in others.

Oh hell, I actually forgot. I also accomplished my super big goal of 2012 - my 12 books in 12 months in the year of 2012. Literally, to write a book a month for the entire year. I went through NaNoWriMo in 2011, got the bug for pushing myself to write every day, and decided, why the hell not? Let's do it for a whole year. And I managed it - even while driving across the country, through visits to the ER, finding and working a full time job, and managing to go to the gym regularly every other day for three months. All other excuses are invalid forever, Jessica. You did that. You fucking did it. And you are going to do every fucking other thing you've wanted to do, but didn't think you could.

For the last couple years, a lot of my coming year posts have been about trying to maintain. I've had some pretty rough spots, and it's been a struggle just to keep my head above water, so to speak, for a while. But one of the things I think I've realized is that, if you're feeling overwhelmed and all you want to do is be able to just get through the day...well, shit, sometimes that's all we can ever hope for. But you have to be really, really careful. Because doing the minimum just to make it through can, very, very easily, become your status quo. You get used to it. You cut yourself a break, and everyone needs one, once in a while. But you have to be careful not to keep doing it...not to stagnate, and just to let yourself tread water, because you don't think you can do any more than that.

I've been stagnating for too long.

In 2012, I did a lot to push myself. Working out, writing 12 books (12 effing books, guys, average of 50,000 words apiece), and moving across the damn country, not to mention finding a full time job to challenge myself with. I am pretty damn proud of 2012. Looking back, there were rough spots there, too, but there are ALWAYS going to be rough spots. Everywhere.

Brian makes fun of me sometimes for my intense work ethic and need to set crazy goals and then half kill myself accomplishing them. And sometimes I do need to be more realistic, and I can be a little hard on myself, blah blah blah blah blah. I think my real problem is that I misdirect my ambition. I set sights on how I think I should be, or what I should be able to do, and then I get really down on myself when I'm not instantly there. I think I need to start training myself to say, okay, this is what I think I can do, and what I would be like to be able to do. I'm not there right now. But I could be - and I need to figure out how.

I'm pretty sure that with my Puritan sense of duty and my German work ethic and love of efficiency, I could accomplish some scarily awesome things. And with a supportive soon-to-be-husband, family, and more friends than I really deserve.

So, humblebragging aside, here are some things that I want to CAN accomplish in 2013.

-Gym going, obviously. To become healthier, and maybe in good enough shape to run that 5K, maybe in the fall. Long term goal: Run a Ragnar race. I'm already building my dream Ragnar team. I also want to go to more of the yoga classes, push myself to become not just stronger, but strong in a practical sense - doing push ups, pull ups, jumping better, kind of leading to Parkour, but just overall a stronger person.

-Get at least three of the twelve books I wrote to a place where I think I can try to get them published. Maybe even try to self publish one, or e-publish. But this year, while I will still keep up writing in a much more casual sense, will be focused on editing and publishing. I have a lot to learn about both, and it scares me - but this is something I should do *because* it scares me. (That little gem? Kinda my unofficial mantra, for the past year. I'm keeping it up).

-Start a gosh darn podcast radio show. This was something I wanted to do back in my senior year of college - write something in the style of an old radio show, with sound effects and voice actors, and get it going as a regular podcast. It didn't pan out, for reasons and excuses, blah blah blah, but. I might employ some of my friends and fiance for voices, but one of my secret not so secret dreams is to be a voice actor. I think I'd be pretty good at it. But because being a writer comes first and I don't think I could try to be a starving artist at two different things, it sort of fell to the side, which is okay. But damn it, it's something I want to do. So I'm going to do it.

-Blogging! Maybe with the twelve novels out of the way, I'll have more time and energy to write in here more often, and not such crazy long epic posts! (Seriously...sorry, guys.) I follow a few blogs and have huge amounts of love and respect for those bloggers...so why not Jess? Plus, it keeps me accountable for my workouts, if nothing else.

-I have a different year long challenge in mind, for this year. It's super super more laid back than my last one, and I'm going to go more into details with it later. But I think I like having year long challenges. Only, I'm learning from my last one - I'm going to set aside something, like a really nice bottle of booze or fifty bucks or something, to reward myself with when I accomplish it. I didn't really have faith in myself for the 12 in 12 challenge, so I didn't want to give myself anything as a reward since I would inevitably fail, but it would have been nice for past me to have done something to congratulate future me. So more on that too, later!

-School. School school school. Gosh. I'm starting an intro to basic computering class on January fifteenth, and golly gosh darn gosh golly, it was nerve wracking trying to get into that, and talking myself into it, and making the plunge, and actually freaking going for it. And I hadn't even taken the damn class yet! So that's also really intimidating, but something I'm really excited for. My long term goals include becoming a computer hardware engineer, and build and design robots computers. Or possibly fall in love with programming, who knows? That's why we take intro classes!

I think that's about it! I have other stuff I want to accomplish (like a super awesome Lord of the Rings drinking game that I found out about + THE TRILOGY EXTENDED VERSION ON BLU RAY THAT THIS LUCKY GIRL JUST ORDERED ON AMAZON) but I dunno, maybe that list looks a little short! (hardeeharharhar no I'm just joking. Mostly.) I'm also going to go out more and see more of Chicago while we're here and finally get a hedgehog make new friends and all that stuff!

2012: Turns out I can do quite a bit, when I put my mind to it.
2013: Do stuff that scares me, turn dares into goals into plans into accomplishments, and turn "Why am I not like that right this instant!" to "How can I do that in an efficient and effective way?" I'm done treading the water, I think. It's time to swim, baby.