Live Legendary

So. The first month of 2010 has come and gone. It was quite a month. In fact, it's been quite a long time since I've had a month like this one. Maybe later in this post I'll find a place to bore you with a nice list of everything that's made it quite a month.

I haven't hurt this bad in a long time. The sudden and sharp weather shifts feel like the planetary rotation comes to a screeching halt and I hit it at full velocity, face-first. The world then comes back around for another swing. Mother nature is using me for pells.

If my science is all screwed up there, we're not going to talk about it. Just like we're not going to talk about my utter and complete failure to blog every day until NaNo began.

But failure is okay.

That's kinda the point of this blog. (Only, tangentially so. I promise it will almost make sense at the end!)

If you've been reading my blog for any length of time (which, by the way, congratulations for extraordinary patience), you know that at the beginning of every year I try to sit down and ponder a bit about the past year. I'm a month late, and the New Year's horse is already dead and decomposing, and here I am beating it with 2x4.

Bored with New Year's ramblings? Don't read. Or, stick with me, because I've got a point to make, and I like my point. You should like my point, too.

Last year I wasn't too happy with myself. I'd spent 2008 as a lump on a log, doing very little of value and generally coasting along in a half-aware haze.

I decided 2009 would be different.

It was.

I have dubbed 2009 The Year of Fail.



In 2009, I got involved in a lot of things - I worked at anime and comic conventions for Dragon's Lair; I visited friends in several other cities, including Fort Worth and Seattle. I got off my butt and exercised more. I cut my soda down and I cleaned up my diet a bit. I got involved in an online writing community (that failed). I joined or tried to join several gaming groups and started a game of my own. (I refer, of course, to table-top role-playing.) I quit an online RPG I had been a part of for a long time (ASR), and I got more involved in my church. I cleaned out and gave away a HUGE amount of my stuff.

I met and adopted my Padawan. (Say hi to the nice people Aloyran. You can go back to hiding in a minute.)

I even managed to get some writing done. On the Katheryn story even.

Really?

Looking at my post from last year, I did a lot of what I wanted to do. However, I can say that in 2009 I grew a lot as a person.

You know what that means, don't you?

It means 2009 was an interesting year. Full of opportunities to build character.

Yeah.

You get it.

Truth is, about 2/3 of what I tried to do last year failed. I didn't get much progress on either of the stories I wanted to really dig into. That writing community thing I tried? It failed. Trying to really get back into ASR? That failed. (I had the chance to take command of the USS CIRCE, too.) I tried to get into a gaming group with my co-workers. That failed. I tried to build friendships outside of work with my co-workers. That (mostly) failed.

I tried to lots of things to get involved at church, but most of those failed. I'm still teaching the kids and there is the potential for much more on the horizon (though, it came up in 2010, so it doesn't count for 2009.)

My room still isn't re-arranged, though I have less stuff, and if all goes according to plan, I'll have even less stuff over the next few months. (I'm really on this kick of slowly whittling down the amount of things I have. Except books.)

I have to be honest: my job has been an unmitigated success. My boss has shown her financial appreciation of my work and has also shown her appreciation by giving me a promotion into a position she created especially for me. I'd like to think I have done well in that position, showing that not only is it necessary, but that I have taken the ball and run with it. With her blessing (and the assistance of one very special colleague) I have worked to re-establish Dragon's Lair's community involvement through charity and volunteer work.

I will continue this through 2010.

It seemed that through 2009, everything got in the way. Despite my best efforts, the fibro and arthritis have gotten progressively worse. I even had a few weeks where I was terribly emo about being less than two years away from being 30 years old.

Yeah. I'm over it now. Feel free to laugh.

However, one thing came out of 2009 that I'm particularly proud of.

A new life philosophy. Really, it's something I've dabbled with from time to time.

Live legendary.

I asked for a week of leave from work at the beginning of November for NaNo - I do that every year I'm working. My boss, in her Awesomeness, gives it to me every year. (I do ask months in advance. Like...March. Or, in this case, I asked in December 2009 for November 2010. Advance notice is key to time off.)

And Abi offered to help me get up to the Seattle area to finally meet her in person. It involved a fair major expenditure of money for both us, a huge commitment of time and effort from me in terms of travel and fibro/arthritis angst and the risk of interfering with NaNo - which is my Big Thing for the year. (Really, Christmas? Not my thing. New Year's? Not my thing. Easter has Jesus and chocolate, so I like it a lot, but NaNo is my thing.)

I agreed to her plan, because it sounded awesome. I would get to go see Zinou and my brother Iridanum and I would get to meet Abi, who has been my close friend for years now.

Then I started to have second thoughts. Did I really want to go? Was it really worth going?

One morning in September, I was vacuuming the store before opening, pondering these things as I sucked cat hair, debris and fingernail clippings off the carpet, and I realized I was full of shit.

*Waits for Chelsea to stop laughing.*

What was I thinking? Why wouldn't I go?

I realized I was thinking of all the things that could go wrong, instead of all the things that could go right.

Qui-Gon Jin said it: "Your focus determines your reality." (And if you didn't think I would bring this back around to fandom, then you're obviously new to my blog. So welcome. Don't throw popcorn at the monitor. It stains.)

My focus was all wrong.

I started thinking about it, feeling all nice and sorry for myself, wallowing in self-pity as I chipped dried skittle off a shelf.

Somewhere in there, I realized that I was being a coward. There was so much to gain by going. It was, actually, one of the things I wanted to do with my life - go meet my online friends.

Why was I being such an emo-twit about the opportunity to be just that?

I thought about it a good long time while I cleaned the bathrooms. I needed something to keep my mind off what I found in there.

All the really cool people we look up to in life go out and do. In stories, characters are always doing things, even when they get mud on their faces and have to apologize, admit they were wrong, or just plain fail.

Yet, at the end of most of the stories I like, the characters end up as living legends.

So, what would a legend do?

Just that. A legend would do.

I went to Seattle. I'm glad I went. It was an awesome, exhausting, brain-boggling, soul-stirring, thought-provoking and amazing trip. Even though not everything went according to plan, I met Abi, spent lots of time with my brother and Zinou, got a few cool souvenirs (one of which I left there). I came back to Austin and promptly got deathly ill.

I was right.

And I decided I was going to be become a living legend.

Corny, yes? Well, get over it. Because I'm right.

I realized I'd been dabbling with doing this all of 2009. Whether it was Fictales, or going to Fort Worth to meet MuggleMomma or jumping into the Communications Coordinator job.

I hadn't really been trying at it, though. I was picking and choosing and letting circumstances dictate a lot of it.

Not any more.

All my life, I've had disabilities and disadvantages. All my life, I've heard all the reason why I couldn't or shouldn't do something. I've watched lots of my friends, particularly Musuko and his wife do awesome things and have awesome stories.

Sure, I got arrested in Mexico once, but that was years ago. What have I done since then worth talking about?

I think flying across the country to meet an awesome girl who I've been friends with for years on a whim is a good one.

But there's a few logical consequences to doing. For one, some of the time, I'm going to fail. Things don't always work out. But that's okay.

Really. It is. Because at least I went and did instead of just sitting on my enormous ass and saying "I could have..."

One of my personal heroes, James T. Kirk said something that has been in my brain for a long time: "Risk is our business."

Risk is our business. Life is about living. Life is about doing. Doing things that have risk means we're doing something more than just crawling along and making sure there's nothing in our way before we take that next, tiny little step.

It doesn't matter what we do in life, it's going to be hard. It doesn't matter what we do in life, there will be things that knock us down, get in our way, and cause problems.

We deal with it and we move on.

So why not move on in big ways, significant ways.

Fail, get up, and do something else. Or try again. Just don't stop. Don't stop moving forward. Don't stop trying. Don't give up.

There is also this: choose what you do. Don't let it be chosen for you. Don't be stupid about things; don't get involved in things you know are bad for you, just for the sake of experience or just to say you've done something.

Think things through, be deliberate and be purposeful.

There is a spiritual element here, too. (This is where you guys who are bothered by religion should tune out until the end.)

Christianity is a faith about action; doing just one more thing to make the world a greater place. Like the Zoroastrians, we know we're going to win; God doesn't need us to win. However, what we do - it contributes to and helps shape His creation. Each action or lack thereof creates ripples and helps shape what He has made for us. When we do we can either turn to Him or use, other, more limited resources to do. By turning to Him, whatever it is that we do adds what He wants to the world; but turning to ourselves, we end up adding something that is more full of our own imperfections and failings instead of being full of His Grace and power.

When you go out and do, do it with Him; for Him. Doing is how we grow and how we become what He wants us to be. God made us in His image; that means there is something of Him in us. To me, that means we are designed to transcend our limitations and our obstacles.

In fact, that's why I think a lot of things are put in our path; God is giving us the chance to grow and to become more than what we are; he wants us to transcend them, to turn to Him and to have him lift us up and help us move over, around or through what's in our path.

Of course, in my indelible style, I have, using over 2000 words, said just this: My new philosophy on life is: Fuck it. I win.

Seriously.

Fuck it. I win.

Fuck can't.
Fuck reasons why not.
Fuck the people who say I can't.
Fuck everything in my way.
Fuck everyone in my way.

Fuck it.

I win.

So for 2010? Hold my beer and watch this.

For those of you who are interested or who are just bound and determined to somehow slog through this wall of text, the events of this month, in bullets:

• Four people I haven't talked to in years are talking to me.


• One of my long-time friends has discovered the joy of Star Trek.


• I'm getting a second class to teach at church.


• Somehow, I've ended up as a counselor for a pre-teen Christian camp. (You can laugh. It's okay. Really.)


• Musuko is in town. This is Epic Win.


• I had male bonding time with my Boss's boss. (More on this in a separate entry.)


• I might get to go to Seattle and somewhere in New Jersey for work.


• I had breakthroughs on more than one story.


• I've managed to get caught up at work.


• I'm tutoring again.


• I've managed to have a social life.


• Despite the fibro/arthritis


• I've found my discipline and focus again.


• I'm writing. And have ideas. My muse is still a dirty, filthy little whore.


• I have several more blog posts plotted. Hey, why are you all running away?


• I have a new fandom and new friends.


• I can finally drink black coffee. (Yes. Another post forthcoming.


• I'm going to Dayton.


• I'm having a good fucking year so far.


• Fuck it. I win.