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it's a new year.....

1999

1999, the millenial dusk is upon us.

here are some of my hopes for 1999:

1999, a year, i hope, to quote the song, of "wild mood swings"
1999, a year of courage, to live my dreams
1999, the year my knee comes back to life,
through hard work, lots of luck and more hard work

then after that i hope as hell,
my refound knee
lets me live those dreams i've missed so much

i think in short 1999 will be about rehabilitation, first and foremost..... after spending nigh on 6months in 1998 futilely trying to avoid reconstructive surgery, these next 8 months will show if if at least the surgery, when it did come, was worth it.... and, i swear i'm going to work hard to make it worth it.

after that 1999, may end up being about my new job. starting monday, i'm a technicla project manager with icon medialab, and i am looking forward to sinking my teeth into something new and exciting.

on a more personal level, i think 1998 like no year before it was a good year. a year that taught me many things about happiness, friendship, and the desire to help make the world a better place. what i really need from 1999 is the courage to act.

i feel like i'm building up some quite frightening expectations to myself, for late this summer, early in the fall. whenever i think about all these things, i think about the dreams i have for making my life better, for being true to myself. i realize that i finally have the courage to admit to myself that importance of these dreams. but for the time being there has been little action, on them, with excuses ranging form the sorry state of my knee (as valid an excuse as i'm likely to ever find) to lesser excuses og laziness and financial debt.

so once i get this knee in order (september 1999 i hope) the biggest (and only acceptable) excuse will be blowing in the wind, which, i'm loathe to admit frightens me a little bit, because at that point there will be no two ways about it, either i act on these dreams, and try to live the life i see myself smiling most in, or i admit to extreme cowardice and become just another workaholic with a depression.....

---

1998

1998 strangely enough, does not come through as a bad year at all.

frankly, i expected it to... it was a difficult year, back from 6 months backpacking in south america, finally realizing that the study programme i spent 3½ years at, just wasn't worth the time invested, only to have all dreams of what i was going to do instead, shattered by a torn cruciate ligament, during a friendly bout of squash with my old man......
and 7 months of hard rehab work, and no basketball, the sport i've played and loved for 10 years now. not to mention that my grandmother died, never in my list of positive events, and least of all, with someone i loved as much as i did her....

I'm telling you, it wasn't easy from that perspective, hell, it still isn't easy to cope with 'wasting' 18 months of your life in inactivity while desperately trying to get that damn knee back in working order. 18 months is an awful long time when you're 24!

i think 1998 was redeemed by two things.

travelling: starting in january 98, with a double trip to london, and continuing over easter with 2 weeks in israel, visiting yaeli and gali, also a couple of weeks with my 2 adorable little nieces in vienna, only to finish of with another trip to london in october, the friends and family i visited, the fun i had on those trips created memories of good times, that vastly pushes the balance towards the positive.

realizations: the realizations, that came out of all the difficult situations, the realization that albeit it was everything that wasn't expected of me, quitting a study programme that gave me nothing, was the best thing i could do, the realization that 'even though' it leads me nowhere grand, just working and getting work experience, without anything in mind but learning the trade, and getting some challenges was a reasonable thing to do. the realization, that regardless of the state of my knee, of all the dreams that it's postponed, all it does it restrict my options from twice infinity to only a single infinity..... ohhhh, the poverty of choice :-)

i think i finally realized that i'm not free because of my education, i'm not free because i do what society expects of me, i'm free because i choose to be free. it is a state of mind a feeling an acceptance of circumstance, and a willingness to work within reason to realize my dreams. most of all it is the knowledge that life is here for me to grab hold of, and wether in doing that i arouse great admiration, loathing, jealousy, or wonder doesn't really matter, as long as i do it.......

happy new year to everyone i know, and most of those i don't....

 

currently reading:

Peter F. Hamilton:
"A second Chance at Eden"