I am trying to blog again. It used to be such an important thing for me. In past nine years, it has helped me crystallize a lot of my thoughts. It has helped me tease out a lot of recurrent themes in my life. It has made it easier to isolate a lot of my self-destructive behaviors and thoughts. (Whether or not it has actually helped me deal with them is another matter entirely, but, as they say, knowing is half the battle.)

It’s been four months since I’ve blogged with any sort of regularity, and I kind of worry what sorts of things I’ve been avoiding thinking about. I’m not really all that enthusiastic about dredge through the muck and mire of my subconscious. Maybe there really are things better left undisturbed. And yet I know that can’t possibly be right. Just because you can’t see it, feel it, hear it, smell it, taste it, doesn’t mean it can’t hurt you.

Still, I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions. For one thing, I’ve never succeeded in keeping a single resolution past January 31st. For another thing, I have a feeling that the purpose of a resolution isn’t merely to vow to do something you should already be doing. So I’m going to try to do all the things I’ve been meaning to do these past years and decades, and I’m not going to beat myself up for failing to continue to do them. What’s the point of beating yourself up, when life is quite able and willing to do it all for you anyway.

I would like to be a little more positive about things, but this is hard to do after years and years of practicing objectivity unmitigated pessimism. I don’t want to be one of those Pollyanas constantly talking about how getting shit on is somehow a positive life event that is crucial to my personal success. But, admittedly, just because life tends to suck doesn’t mean there aren’t moments, fragments that are pure gold. In the end, all you’ve got is memories, and even though there’s a lot of bleakness and bellyaching in the past nine years of my blogging, and even though most of the things I’ve documented are quite mundane and insipid, they’re my memories. You can laugh happily about anything (assuming you managed to survive the experience) given enough time.

But it’s January and it’s 75°F, and even though it’s never even come close to snowing here, the 20° swings are starting to drive me loopy. I suppose I should be glad it’s not 20° in the other way. Things can always be worse. What I’ve realized is that I haven’t seen the sea in 7 months. It may be time to make a quick trip.

We’ll see how many other non-binding resolutions I can come up with.