2011: A Year in Review

Another year is coming to a close. And to think I started this year in Vegas, in the Palazzo Hotel, face down on a metal toilet with an automatic flush. Really, there are few other places as perfect to be extremely ill as on a metal toilet with auto flush. The metal keeps cool and it just keeps flushing itself. One can nap and vomit without concern! Though, security...those bastards! forced me into a wheelchair, siting some regulation about persons who cannot stand of their own accord and medical assistance, and was wheeled away from my lovely metal toilet with it's automatic flush (don't worry, I totally got those fancy-schmancy Palazzo jerks when I threw-up in their lobby on my way out to the ambulance!) I was taken to the ER where I sang Lady Gaga on my gurney, and was the happiest patient there. I mean, yes, I was hung over for a full week and didn't drink for a full month after, but it was a hell of a way to ring in 2011. 

Soon after I started my first semester at SDSU, a place I am proud to say I have only one more semester at, proving that hard work and determination can pay off, even if it takes a while. I moved to my small and generally quiet studio apartment and have been sailing through the year, turning 25 and recognizing that life is not infinite, as I am not infinite. That each day I grow ever more aged, until the one day that I cease to exist, which according to some could be this year, 12-21-12. 

But with this, where do I go? Where do I place my next step? Do I continue down the path I've sought, or decide that in this one life I must live for myself alone? Do I allow my individualistic societal views to take over, or live as the collectivist I've been? The resolutions have been made, but where do they actually take me? Or, perhaps, my feet will fall exactly where they're meant to and my journey will unfold itself. 

Each year, we ring in the next with frivolity and unhampered celebration. Each year resolutions are made, many of which are abandoned within a week or two. We tell ourselves that this year will be different, that the world is our oyster and the pearl is ours for the taking. But perhaps we are all looking at the new year the wrong way. Perhaps it isn't the resolutions we make to ourselves that matter the most, perhaps it is those we make to our species, to the next generation, to the last generation, to our allies and enemies, to the future of the planet as a whole. Perhaps if we could stop focusing on our own pithy little problems we could realize that it's a new year for us all. And without at least one of those resolutions going to the greater good, we might just be lost forever. 

May the next year bring a change, for the better, for all.