This is my attempt to sum 2011 up in one blog post. After all, it is the last day of the year and a million people are trying to figure out what they want to take into the new year. So, are you ready? Before you start, there are links embedded in this post. I suggest you read before clicking on the links, but the links are important. I have to admit this year was a couple of roller coaster rides. I hate roller coasters sometimes. That means sometimes I absolutely love the rush of going up and down, being thrown around in circles, and then getting off the ride to realize I survived. Yeah, you're ready now.
2011 started off horrible. Well, actually it was horrible times ten. See I was jobless, broke, had one close friend, no fun in my life, and I was extremely bored. There may have been a little depression mixed in there too. If you've had nothing but negative comments from the people that are supposed to love your thrown your way for months at a time, you will understand the mention of depression. So, basically the beginning sucked and I didn't have any new years resolutions. Resolutions and goals didn't seem important for the year, because they had been a failure the year before. My heart was hurt and the worse part of all is I felt like I couldn't share it with anyone. Instead I implanted the pain I was going through in some of my poems. For the rest of the world, I tried to fake like I was happy so great things would eventually happen. Something did within the first month of the year.
Well there were two different occurrences that brightened 2011 up within the first month. One was a job and the other was a man. The job involved becoming an SEO (search engine optimization) blogger for an insurance company. While I knew how to write that job taught me a lot and put money in my pockets. Once the money came I stopped asking for money from my parents. This girl right here has always been good at managing money to the point where she wouldn't need it from anyone else after she had it. Wait, let me backtrack for a second. I knew about writing, but not about search engine optimization. I thought it would be easy to learn, but it is a totally different structure from journalism and even creative writing. It was interesting though because I never before knew exactly how people's internet sites drew in so many readers without them doing much of anything except writing. I was at that job for 4 whole months, but the relationship lasted only a month and a couple days.
I'm still not sure why I referred to him as a boyfriend or even an ex-boyfriend. I had sort of made one resolution that involved dating. Well, really it involved sex. Instead of falling in love, I wanted to get a groove and this dude helped me get it. The sex was good. Love and all those other drugs didn't work into the equation though. He thought he was in love. I was willing to play along just to see how far we could go, but yeah love and all the other drugs forgot to meet up with me so the plan would work.
Speaking of love, one of my best friends got married. I would have been one of her bridesmaids, but lack of understanding from loved ones kept me from attending her wedding. However, the fact that that her husband made their love official by marrying her was beautiful. If you've ever known her, then you know why she deserves it. They are a great couple.
In the midst of trying to abandon all thoughts of love I went on the search of trying to get comfortable with another man, or men. Some might call it trying to be a professional heaux, but I just wanted fun. That plan only halfway worked out. There was an old friend that fell into the trap. For some reason he thinks I'm super shy, but he just doesn't know. Then there was/is the guy at my job that comes once a week and has a great body. I don't know this guy's name, but he looks like eye candy anyway. I just wanted to stare and still do.
Back to job hunting. I always thought the purpose of going to college was to find out what you love in life. Well, many of us know what we love way before we reach college and that's how we already know the best majors. Well, although I had a journalism degree and an addiction to writing that affected my sleeping pattern, in 2011 I learned that none of that mattered. I also learned that my search for a job was a pain in the ass for others and not really myself. See, I guess I have this gift that not everyone possesses but I was told to apply at grocery stores, bowling alleys, police stations, banks, engineering companies, in Africa, in Europe, stand on the side of the street and beg for change, and go up to the alter every Sunday after church and pray for more money. What does a girl that can write do at an engineering company? How much money can a girl with a journalism degree make at a bank and what other than a teller can she do? Did I mention this all happened after already having a job? Okay, maybe that's a little exaggerated, but you get the point. I thought I had my life all figured out, even when the money had me crying out, but others seemed to think I was heading in the wrong direction. It was the worse roller coaster ride ever.
So I finally made someone happy and got a job making more money. I liked the job surprisingly, but don't tell anyone.The only thing is I hated the feeling of it because it was supposed to make me happy, but others were trying to steal my joy and they did. I'm definitely hard to please and 2011 played games with me in that area. First the games started with the relationship and then with the search that involved people throwing a million job ideas my way. But I did manage to please myself in a very special way.
Actually there were two special ways. One way was by chopping the perm off my head. In the original post I said I was doing it to become a follower. Well, there's more. The stress of all the job searching, some people not thinking I was doing enough, men tripping, living with family, and feeling like I had worked hard just to backtrack had gotten to me. My life was out of order and someone once said cutting off all your hair can create organization in your life. See, I had a perm. Cutting the perm off meant I'd have to learn how to deal with my hair all over again. It would be like giving birth to a baby. That's the same that I'm trying to do with a career. I'm trying to birth a baby that 20, 30, and 50 years down the line I can smile about. So I started planning in June. June of 2011 I got my last perm. July I bought a wig and worse it until September when I made an appointment with a new hair stylist and chopped it off. You can't start new by going to the same familiar place, right? So I went to that stylist and then later progressed to the barbershop. I'm a brave girl. I don't know for sure if the new hair has anything to do with it, but my future writing career is starting to look brighter. The reason is for later in the post.
The other way was California. To be exact it was a trip to Hollywood, California. In the previous year I talked about doing the trip with a friend, but no money made me abandon the plan. However, I was so stressed out by September that it didn't matter if I went by myself. In fact it was the best idea ever. I took the trip alone for three days before my birthday. While there I walked down Hollywood Blvd and down Sunset Blvd for over a mile. My feet didn't like it by the second day. I did the Hollywood tours and learned that it's going to take a lot of prayer and money to live a beautiful life out in Cali. I ended the excitement that Saturday by going to Malibu beach. There's something amazing about fresh blue water that stretches out farther than your imagination can stretch.The day of my birthday I flew back home renewed.
While that trip was great, it was even better when my grandmother came into town weeks later. Although I caught whatever cold was going around I was able to treat her and her friend to lots of fun in H-Town. They were vacationing so I gladly paid for whatever they wanted to do. It was bittersweet to be able to do that for my grandmother.
Even though my grandmother was there, I hit a boring point on Thanksgiving Day. That boring point led me to start submitting to magazines again about writing. Well, I only submitted to one after staying on it for hours reading others work. That was Good Vibrations magazine and it paid off. You can catch me on there regularly or whenever inspiration hits. See, my writing career is blossoming.
After all that you'd probably think I was preparing for Christmas. December is filled with people making wish lists of what they want others to get them. I abandoned that plan. Instead I started brainstorming of how I can make my life better until my dreams come true.
Wait, the summary made my year sound good. There were bad moments. I cried a lot more than anyone will ever know. I cried because I started to feel worthless at moments. There were times, such as job searching moments, where I felt like I would never be good enough for anyone. There were moments where family members made hurtful comments and I couldn't find privacy fast enough before the tears started flowing. For instance the day after my 25th birthday my mom made some very hurtful comments. While I cried she acted as if nothing had even happened. There were moments where my dad made me cry, because I couldn't do anything right in his eyes. I was going to church enough, doing the dishes enough, staying home enough, getting out of the house enough, or just plain focused enough. Even worse, the headaches that I experienced during my roughest times of childhood and college started to come back. Plus some of the weight I gained while in college started to drop. I went from 93lbs to 85lbs. The weight loss wasn't noticeable to others though. I've always been small.
But it was a stressful year and today I'm realizing that I made it through the year. Have you ever talked so much, but still felt like you were leaving out important information? That's how I feel about this post. There's so much that's being unsaid. For instance I went from being a friend to someone to being their alibi and barely ever talking to them. I also lost another friend, but that may have some potential for being repaired.
See, it was a crazy year. I can't even explain how crazy but there were accomplishments. I got jobs and my writing opened up to a whole new audience. I traveled by myself and utilized only my own money. It's December 31, 2011 which means the year is officially over.
Since tomorrow is the beginning of a whole new year, I'll introduce you to the 2012 goals that are written in stone, the resolutions that are kind of sketchy, and how I plan to stay sane.
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