2012 has been a really, really great year. like, really great. i have done so many things i have yet been brave enough to do, seen so much i used to only dream of seeing, and i have been a way more healthy person. at the beginning of 2012 i was living in ann arbor with some lovely ladies, going to school, and working at the co-op. everything felt pretty stagnant at the time and i knew that i needed to do some serious exploring or else i would go crazy and smoke way too much pot. as the year went on and winter turned to spring everything began to change. i was cutting down on all my bad habits and going on lots of adventures— it was magical and perfect. oh yeah, and i fell in love. summer was basically spending everyday at pickerel lake and every night at a raucous, yet intimate little festival with friends. i spent a lot more time by myself than ever before and i got only moderately drunk a controlled amount of the time. it was lovely and so warm and filled with positive, productive and youthful people / vibrations. at the beginning of september 2012, i turned 21 and moved across the country with my sweetheart. we ended up in olympia, wa after a life-changing trip ‘cross country.
the trip was definitely one of the most influential two weeks of my life and sort of defined 2012 for me. what came next has been trying and extraordinarily difficult at times, but totally worth it in the end. driving across the usa felt like an incredible feat and both the desolation and the beauty we encountered opened my eyes to the ever-changing craziness that is our country. from driving through the u.p of michigan + walking on the cold beach of lake superior in duluth, mn to driving the flat and violently windy highway through north dakota right into the badlands of theodore rooselvelt national park where we camped underneath the most incredible sunset on cracking desert soil just like you’d imagine. from there we spent an entire day driving through the seemingly endless, remarkably hot and redundant landscape of montana where there is literally nothing. after a very long day in which we saw very few people and little other than the dusty road before us, we ended up at glacier national park at midnight with towering stark trees and some of the darkest, scariest roads i have ever driven down. when we woke in the morning to lake mcdonald and the incredible beauty of glacier we were jaw to the ground in love. we ended up staying for an extra day and left knowing we had to come back. we spent the next night at mt.rainier only an hour and a half from our end destination and woke to some rare pacific nw sunshine and huge old mossy trees. we didn’t actually see mt.rainier until a couple weeks into being in olympia due to it’s subtle and often disappearing nature but we definitely want to go back soon.
when we arrived in olympia we were exhausted and dirty and really, really scared of what would come next. i guess i still am sort of scared although most things ended up working out. i have met a few really good people who have helped me out a lot here and the little house that alex and i live in is literally the house of my past dreams. we have gone on many adventures here (portland to seattle to olympic national forest to a strange hostel in bellingham to the beaches of the pacific to lake cushman and many more) and i have focused a lot on my creative endeavors that i too frequently ignore.
alex and i are working on recording an album that we wrote together right now (omg, i can’t believe i just told the internet that) and i am slowly, but surely putting together a collection of poems that i wrote over the course of 2012. when the album is all recorded and i get around to making the album art and we think of a band name i will be sure to tell you all about it so get excited! and really, same for the collection of poetry although how i want to go about that is a little more troubling to me.
my resolution for 2013 is to be more optimistic. i have a tendency to fear the worst and to forget about all the good things i’ve done and am doing and instead to focus on the negative or unknown. this year, i learned that things tend to work out no matter how much you fear or worry about them. i also learned that you have the power to change your environment and circumstances and that there are truly many places to live. i would like to make it a goal of mine to be in general more optimistic about my future and to be more open to the limitless potential of the universe.
now, after all that rambling, here is a list of positive things i did / changes i made in 2012:
- moved away from ann arbor and across the country which made me realize how much i love ann arbor and how possible it is to live anywhere your little heart desires
- became a way better cook and spent a lot less money on eating out.. this has really changed my life for the better i think
- made coffee at home everyday instead of getting it at a cafe
- drank way less alcohol than ever before and thus i regret way less over the course of the year
- smoked way less everything.. who knows if this is good or bad in the not cigarettes realm
- wrote poems that i am proud of and drew pictures that i like
- made music!!!!
- actually started playing the guitar
- watched all of mad men again
ok there is what i can think of off the top of my head right now for 2012, now here goes for things i want to do / changes i want to make in 2013:
- stop freaking out about whether or not to go to college and realize that you don’t really care that much
- play the guitar a lot more and make music and don’t be scared
- draw, draw, draw
- write, write, write
- submit some things to rookie because that seems like a good goal to make and you have ideas
- eat out even less than last year
- travel places.. like all the places you want to go
- eat less sugar and go to the dentist and doctor a regular amount (this will be hard)
- spend more time by yourself
- spend more time with friends
- read more books
- brainstorm unlikely ways of making money and making yourself happy and surviving and stuff
- spend more time outside
- learn how to paint and figure draw and do printmaking stuff
- actually make stuff on the letterpress printer at community print
- be more happy and positive on a day to day basis and remember that around the beginning of the month every month you are about to get your period and that is why you feel grosser and more scared and more unsure and way more sad and mean. seriously, why do i forget this every fucking month
wow. that was a lot of stuff that i just wrote down. if you read it, wow. if not, this felt good to do for myself and i realized that i hadn’t done an update like this in a long time and that really, a lot had changed and it is a new year so it seemed like a good time. whether or not to post things on the internet is an ongoing struggle in my brain so please forgive me if i am super sporadic about blogging, etc. one day i will come to some sort of conclusion about this.. maybe.. maybe not. until then enjoy my infrequent and ridic. posts. happy new year to everybody and thanks for listening :)
