If you’ve been in my circle of friends long enough, you know that this is usually a very tricky time of year to know me. Since that may confuse those of you that don’t in fact know me, I’ll explain.

See, in less than a month I “celebrate” my birthday. For more than a decade or so, the month before my birthday has been a time for me to reflect on the year that has passed, and a time to take stock of my life and where I stand compared to a year ago. In the past, Beerslinger has looked at this time of year with a sense of dread, knowing that I wouldn’t be in the best of moods as I take things at their most negative. In years past, I would get moodier and more brooding than usual as I made myself miserable, seeing only the bad parts of what had happened the eleven months prior.

Around my birthday, the funk itself would lift. At this point, I came out of my mood and would look forward to another year hoping that I would take some opportunities presented to me. It was that hope that caused me to become depressed, knowing that I had once again squandered the chances presented to me.

Well, I’ve begun my introspection again. And you know what?

Life ain’t that bad.

…

(I’ll wait for Beerslinger to wipe off where he sputtered out his drink in shock.)

No, I’m serious. I’m looking at the past year, and I see that things are in a pretty good place for me right now. I have a decent job with opportunities presenting themselves for advancement. I’ve had a creative rejuvenation of sorts, returning to the writing that had eluded me for a while. I’ve become closer to people that had escaped my circle of friends for a while. Other friends have had opportunity come forward and they have grabbed hold. So far, so good.

There’s also one other thing that has happened to me in the past year that has helped put things in perspective for me. I’ll not go too far into it here, but suffice it to say one relationship I had has helped me gain a newfound perspective on life and how I deal with it.

It was sometime after that relationship that I decided to better myself this year, too. I’ve begun examining how I deal with people and with that in mind, I’ve begun changing how I act around others. I try to have a more positive attitude when I deal with people, and I think it’s helping.

This doesn’t mean I’m not a moody bastard as I normally am. It does mean though that the state of Fnliii this year is a pretty good one, with positive outlooks for the next year.

At least, that’s what I’m hoping. Who knows- it could all go to hell tomorrow.

Out.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, August 15th, 2004 at 9:11 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.