I've been trying to decide if I should do a year in review for 2014 here, and thus, flipping through the early entries of last year as recorded in this old battered piece of the internet. I keep thinking Blogger as a website will just up and be like "No!--No more, no more adjectives. You are out of space!" but I keep writing every week, every month.

They're nice to read, even though it all sounds a little overwrought from a distance: keen, earnest, and raw. It's not even true, but "I only write when I'm having a hard time." I guess that's just when I need this routine emotional-leeching more. It's so easy to write when you're sad. It just is. I know sometimes it reads aggrandizing or over-dramatic, but it really helps me to get my dumb feelings out to where I can look at them plainly for what they are.

Thinking about 2014 has been a good experience. All in all, it was a good year. A time of learning stuff and implementing some stopgap self-rescue. I took care of myself. I ran. I looked good, I felt good. I kept going. Something I thought a lot about was expectations--for myself, and those I was putting onto others. "I will feel ______ (happy, accepted, loved, smart, appreciated) when X happens."  (X usually being something totally out of my control, something small and stupid, or some nonsense marker justifying my own ability to myself.) I know it sounds ridiculous, but it was really ingrained. I like to think that I've made some small progress toward that this year.

I'm still feeling my way. I still have a lot of flaws. Fuck, there's stuff that pops up unexpectedly. Early this week, for example, I felt like a paranoid, flailing 2009 version of myself. It was this weird emotional hangover from a weekend of feeling like I'd been a shit friend and unlikable, unwanted person in general. But like... what's that about? It's so self-interested, at the core, self-pitying, and it goes back to the same old narrow bullshit. I never want to be afraid to say that I'm wrong, but wallowing in misery over perceptions that I've decided for myself after hours of worked up stewing is probably not a great way to do that.

So this is all to say, maybe I'll do a year in review? Last year, I didn't for the first time since I was fifteen. I didn't because I couldn't talk about what was going on with me toward the end--not the kind of stuff you tell anyone, let alone your anonymous corner of the web. I missed it, though. Reflection is a good exercise. It's why I have this dumb thing.