The Ascension Begins Now

It's something of an annual tradition for me to take stock of my life come birthday time. A lot of people do that on New Year's, but I'm just more birthday-centric in my thinking as far as this goes. In past blogging years the reports haven't always been so upbeat or positive, even though I still made a joyous celebration of my big day, but the truth is that I spent a lot of time unhappy, not doing what I wanted to do, and unsure of how to break out of the huge rut I was in. A lot has already been made here in this blog about how I escaped the rut, with the help of a certain redhead, and I won't go over that same territory yet again, except to say that things are better now.

I'm happy. Granted, everything isn't perfect yet, but trying to repair fifteen years of depression and self-destruction over the course of one summer is an impossible task. And so, I remain a work in progress. The project that is my reawakening and self-reinvention will be an ongoing thing at least through the end of the year, if not longer depending on what else I decide to do with myself. There is a school of thought that something of this nature should be a continuous project with no end to it, and I tend to agree. There will always probably be more I can do to improve myself. Keeping that in mind, I'm not going to make myself crazy because everything isn't perfect by some arbitrary deadline. As long as things keep moving forward and I remain free of the strangling web of inertia, that'll be a good thing.

As I've mentioned before, I have a lot of plans for what I'd like to do with my life. The job I'm at now is tough and demanding, and often leaves me exhausted, but I like it, and I think it's a place I can stay for a good long while. Earlier this year, at LSI, I used to dread Mondays so badly that it would ruin my Sundays, because I could think of little else except having to go back to that shithole the next day, and I would get so worked up that my stomach would be upset by this time of the night. All that's gone. I don't dread tomorrow and the upset stomachs are a thing of the past. Best of all, I can enjoy myself on a Sunday afternoon.

But this job isn't my destiny. I will finish this book. The groove I'm in right now is one of the best I've ever gotten myself into, and I'm happier with the written pages than I've ever been. This book isn't the end of it, though. I have another book in mind that I'd like to write, and ideas for possibly three more. On top of that, I would love to get a regular gig writing a monthly comic book. I don't care if it's a creator owned deal where I'm working on the characters I created in the other blog, which I still believe are viable. I don't care if it's working for Marvel Comics on Captain America or DC Comics on the Justice League. All I want is to play in one of those playgrounds and write something that'll make some little kid feel as happy as I did when I was five and opened up a new issue of the Avengers. There's a ton of things I could do. It's all ahead of me.

I still want a baby. I can be patient. This will take some time, I know. But that isn't going away. It's going to happen.

That's the big stuff. There are other, little, pieces that I'm also working on, but I'll talk about those as they come up.

Meanwhile, the larger picture is starting to fall into place. Back last winter things looked pretty bleak. I was stuck at that job with no escape in sight, I wasn't writing much or well, there were no romantic prospects anywhere to be found, I hated myself, and I'd even lost touch with my best friend Guinevere. I'm sure I was unpleasant to be around and not easy to talk to. Probably around February, when I broke my little toe, was when I hit rock bottom. I was angry, bitter, miserable, and circling the drain. But with a little help from some key people I've managed to turn that all around, and I feel better than I've felt in a very long time.

I am back on track. As good as Year 36 finished out, it's only the beginning. Year 37 is going to be huge.

Keep reading. You'll see.