And, Don't Let The Door Hit You...

I'll be none too displeased to see the ass-end of 2013 riding off into the sunset. Nossir, not one bit. I'll be standing on Southampton Dock, bravely waving the boys goodbye. Not a tear shall mar my face. I may, in fact, even giggle.

Remember when you were in high school, only days (or hours) away from some big holiday, or whatever? Remember watching the clock, as the minutes slugged oh so slowly forward, like sperm trapped in Jell-O? The apprehensive feeling, when you knew something better was just around the corner, but you had to hurry up and wait for it?

2013 – the entire YEAR – was like that for me. From the day I touched down in Seattle a year ago on Dec. 23 after 30 hours in the air from Bombay, to about four minutes after midnight last night, I counted every damn minute. Sometimes every second.

Longest. Year. Ever.

I lost one of the best friends I ever knew to cancer this past year, and the loss has affected me more deeply than I could have imagined. I cut myself completely adrift for a while, just to purge the last six years without everyone else getting splash damage. A training opportunity I had been waiting on for the last five years fell through. I had to let go of a lot of my personal boundaries for a while, like treading water watching sharks circling you. Saw the Lone Ranger, and wanted to shove piano wire into my eyes in the hopes that I could expiate my sin, and perhaps un-watch it…alas, I am now blind, and still see it in my mind. The piano wire didn't sink far enough.

There were some bright spots in the fabric of gloom, but they were rare and brief, indeed. Like a drowning man gasping momentarily for air before he sinks again.

2014 is shaping up with a lot of promise, though. (I should be careful here…that's EXACTLY what I said about 2013!) Obviously, I'm writing again, which in itself is a major hurdle. I didn't want to go NEAR a computer for several months. I ripped into a couple of Mormons this morning, intent on interfering with my New Years' coffee. That put a smile on my face. Got a few Australian black winter truffles in recently, and they are every bit as good as the French Perigord (watch, now I'll be banned from France as well). I met some new friends, reconnected with old ones. I took a Sushi course, I can make some basic sashimi plates pretty well now. No Godzilla rolls or anything, but I can cut & roll some fish.

Ever since my spinal surgery, I feel like I've been given a second chance. I don't want to waste it on trivial, meaningless things like I did much of the last decade. You only get so long, you know. I feel like it took this entire year to get my head screwed back on straight (well, straight-ish), much longer than I had expected in the first place. You really don't know the level of psychological damage this kind of trauma can have on you, you can't fully grasp the consequences until you actually go through it.

Now I know how the sock feels