auld lang syne

I felt sad during the second hour of 2008. I wasn't going to admit it because I thought it would put a curse or a jinx or something on the whole year, but I decided that it's important to note.

Eric was grouchy, for one thing. He lay sideways on my bed with his jacket still on, because he didn't want to stay for more than two minutes. His negative energy made me feel weird and sad. I think I was crying a little.

"I feel weird about us," he said with his eyes closed. He wonders if I love us or just the idea of him, or actually just him. He has never said this before.

Meanwhile, I could feel the joints in my spine seizing up. My hips sore and inflamed. I felt sad and in physical pain, at the same time. The pain subsided this morning and I wonder if the two -- the sadness and the pain -- are connected at all.

I go to school with a girl who is a journeyman welder-slash-stripper-slash-liscenced hypnotherapist. She says positive thinking and positive experiences effect physical ailments for the better. Here's something about her: she has ankylosing spondilitis too. She feels the same pain, inflammation, stiffness and achiness that I feel.

She thinks that the disease can be managed with drugs, but also with unconventional methods, like positive thinking and a well-balanced life. I sort of believe her.

But then again, Tanya was the most positive person I knew, and she passed away from her disease.

And that's a little chunk of negativity that follows me around like a shadow. It's hard to make it go away, and (as weird as it is) I almost don't want to. It's a sort of badge of honour that I can use to prove that I have been through something monumental. It's a reason I can give for being the way that I am. And it is simultaneously proof that I have not -- can not?-- overcome.

I would rather not have it at all. I would rather have my wisest, most positive friend be with me in life, telling me not to be negative and helping me make plans. I don't want a badge of honour that I can use to prove my experience with. I don't want a nagging shadow of negativity.

I want 2008 to be a year when I blossom into the world as my freest, most charismatic self. The year when I gain back my lost resilience. The year when I effect change, rather than just let life happen to me.

I have a friend who likes to ask if you are the driver in the car of your life, or if you are just a passenger. Some of us are passengers who give directions. In a way, we are all driving, whether we like it or not.

I don't know for sure who I want to be, which is the hardest part.

So I'm going to read books and drink coffee out of large, satisfying mugs. I'm going to ride horses and drive all over the province. I'm going to slog through another semester and come out more wise. I am going to stop sounding like a motivational speaker when I discuss my goals.

I liked my New Years Eve -- I like my friends, and greek food, and martinis and shots with girly-sounding names like Apple Pie. I like group hugs at midnight and ten million disposable camera pictures. It wasn't the night's fault that I was sad between 1:00 and 2:00 AM. I don't know whose fault it was, really. Just the accumulation of like experience and self-doubt, I guess.

But here's something cool that I read in "Eat Pray Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. It's a quote from her friend Bob, who is a neuroscientist and student of yoga:

"Just as there exists in writing a literal truth and a poetic truth, there also exists in a human being a literal anatomy and a poetic anatomy. One, you can see; one, you cannot. One is a made of bones and teeth and flesh; the other is made of energy and memory and faith. But they are both equally true."

Happy New Year.