January 2, 2017

Ah, now this is a very different beast, isn't it?

You got a three legged stool of hope, happiness and illusion at this time of year.

Thanksgiving kicks it off, emotion kicks in and keeps on rolling right into Christmas. The whole month of December feels alive with possibility.

Christmas happens and then - boom - one goddamn week later it is New Years Eve/ New Years Day.

New Years Day represents a last gasp of illusion which, hopefully, you can enjoy if you're not too hungover or working some shit-ass job that robs you of holidays.

Then today rolls around. All illusion is stripped away and you come face to face with "reality", with your fucking resolutions and your hopes for a better tomorrow.

The holidays are dead and most won't see another one until Memorial Day.

That is one harsh fucking stretch of "reality".

When you wake up on 01/02 you know in your heart if you will really move forward in the new year, or if all your positive thoughts and words were just bullshit.

There may be a residue of hope there, of good intentions, but as day after day rolls by and nothing changes, inside you or outside you, resignation and dread settle in.

Your life will not change. You will not be a better person. You will not make enough money to live in dignity.

Your life's course is cast in stone and there will never be anything to look forward to. You become numb one to two weeks into the new year and there you shall remain.

So you have to initiate change immediately. If only to give you something positive to cling to, to give you a reason not to die inside for a little while.

Even that is hard. Most times you strike out in a new direction with something new and you become enthused. One month later, in the bitter cold and dark and depression of February, it has all slipped away.

January 2 is the first step. You gotta take that first step or slip back into the most vicious word in the English language - routine.

You gotta get up on January 2 and say fuck you, buddy, I got this - my life is racing by in meaninglessness and this is the year I dig in my heels.

You gotta puff out your chest and fight back.

And keep fighting back.

Tough day, today is. This "reality" things sucks; it grinds you down, makes you dead before you die and somehow keeps you getting up every morning filled with hate.

You have been filled with false happiness since Thanksgiving and it is really fucking hard to come back down. Hurts like hell.

I wish you luck.

I have failed over and over and over again to grab my life by the throat and make it mine. And now I am 63 years old and smelling the fresh earth being turned over to make room for my corpse.

Still, I am going to give it another shot. I haven't defined the rules of play for 2017. Don't know how the hell I am going to release my soul from captivity and get face to face with the life I should be living.

All I know today, January 2, 2017, is that I am feeling hopeful. Grimly determined.

That's all I got.