The GeekHiker

Resolutions.  I don’t, as a general rule, do them.  New Year’s resolutions in particular.  Well, not on a serious level, anyway.  It’s fun, on occasion, to do them when you’re at New Year’s parties for example.  A couple of years ago I was at a friend’s party for New Year’s eve and we went around the room, each of us sharing our resolutions for the coming year.  Some were serious, some were less-so, some were outright jokes.  But a completely sober, written-on-paper list of resolutions?  Nah.

I think it’s a combination of things: lack of stick-to-itiveness, a complete inability to come up with good resolutions under pressure, the fact that you can resolve to change aspects of your life at any ‘ol time.  So it is that the only thing I’ve resolved to do at the moment is to write this one, last post of 2012.

And its been a heck of a year to be sure, 2012 has.

The longer I stare at the screen, though, I realize I face the same problem that’s plagued me for the past few months and spawned my worst period of writer’s block ever: the sheer volume of it all.  2012 was a banner year, filled with ups and downs, but taken as a whole it reminds me of the giant box of LEGOs I have in storage: all the parts are there, but it’s just a big pile of plastic blocks until you organize it and build it into something.

The past few months since my return have been remarkably introspective as I try to sort through it all.  On the one hand, I’m processing everything I’ve learned about myself in the past year.  On the other, I’m feeling nervous about the future; being unemployed will do that to a guy.  On another, I’m feeling a greater confidence in who I am as a person, what I’m looking for in my career and my life; while I may not have an exact pulse on those things just yet, there’s far greater clarity than there was two years ago.  On yet another, I’m seeing how I’ve changed as a person: more open than before, more forgiving, less judgmental.

(Of course, now I’m up to four hands, which is a little odd.)

I’m also realizing that these were lessons I’ve been learning all along.  The questions I had in November may not still be answered, but I also know that I haven’t really been an anonymous blogger since the moment I met my first reader shortly after starting this online journal.  I’m not, nor will I ever be, a “dirty-laundry” airing writer.  That’s okay, because the personal journaling that I have done have brought me a bounty of friends, just by touching on universal truths that we all share in.  There’s definitely a lesson to be learned in that, one which speaks directly to the success I’ve met in meeting people in my travels.

Anyway, hopefully 2013 will bring a bit of organization to the giant pile.  Writing has proven to be more difficult during the job search than I’d anticipated, which is strange as I technically have more free time than ever.  So, of course, 2013 will be a year in which I try to write more, but I’m not going to make a silly resolution about it because, well, who knows when inspiration will strike?

I’m gonna try to eat better, exercise more, and lose weight, too.  But, forget New Year’s; I make those resolutions every week.

So, no resolutions.  Goals.  A fulfilling job.  More hiking.  More photography.  More photo editing.  More writing.  Get settled, as one thing I think I’m lacking now is a sense of “home.”  With a job search area cast over the entire West Coast, I see the place I’m in now as nothing more than a temporary stopover.  It’s okay, but I haven’t even put decorations on the walls, in the hopes that the lack of a personal touch will spur me on to greater things.

I’ll be spending this New Year’s evening alone.  L.A. is too far to travel to, my S.F. friends are working and, as I write this, most everyone else I know around the globe has already welcomed in 2013.  And, for this one year, it’s totally fine.  I’ll be watching “The Return of the King” and drinking a glass of Winter Lager, and plan to take a hike tomorrow, the first day of the new year… if I can find a good trail.

I have decided to make one change to my little world tonight, though.  You can see it at the top of the blog.  Whether or not it has anything to do with my life at the moment (where, to be honest, the term “it’s complicated” is just the tip of the iceberg), I think that the words “geek” and “hiker” are sufficient to describe who I am.  The other word still matters, of course, but not enough to define myself by it.

Maybe that’s a resolution after all.

I wish you all the best, and that you find peace and love and joy and happiness, in 2013.

GeekHiker