It was a very good year

(What fun to be able to be out and about with my MacBook! This is not my first laptop, but it's my first since wireless became the norm rather than the exception.)

You have to love the end of the year - it makes coming up with a blog post topic so much easier. Two topics, in fact: one to reflect on the year that was, a second to speculate on the year that will be. I'll focus this post on 2008, and save 2009 for tomorrow or Thurs. (I won't necessarily be reciting a list of resolutions, but more like "things I'd like to achieve and/or accomplish by year's end." Yes, there's a distinction.)

Without mincing words, 2008 was good to me. It was marked by two wonderful trips - Portugal in April, DC this past month - as well as a backwoods camping excursion in Sept. (Hooray for swimming naked!) More important, it marked the first full year of my relationship with the lovely A. There were some trying times, to be sure (I don't want to revisit that whole period, but I thought we were going to split soon after coming back from Europe), but we came out of the emotional difficulties stronger as a couple. I also moved this year, and am living in a part of town much more conducive to my personality. (I can't figure out why it took me so long to find this area; I should have moved out there years ago when my relationship with M. ended.) And though I've had some recent troubles at work, I'm still employed in a great job. (Many of my work-related issues revolve around feeling powerless, largely because I had so much power for the first part of the year when my supervisor was on sabbatical and I was, effectively, in charge. I'm sure to cover this ground in a future post. I'd also like to make more money, but that's a pretty familiar rant for most.) Perhaps most important of all, I'm healthy and feel good about my inner, emotional life.

Sure, there are some things I wish I could have accomplished. More personal writing, for one. My photography has also dropped off since the spring - it's only recently my flickr site has been (somewhat) revived from life support. I didn't see as many films in the theatre as I would have liked. (And the film fest was a total bust for me; I can't remember a year where I was so disappointed by the endless line-ups and sold-out shows.) I wish I could have kept up my fanatical summer of running through the fall and winter, and my bike-riding was too sporadic (owing to my crappy bike; I never did recover my beloved Marin, stolen last November), but those are really minor quibbles.

On the plus side, I read some great books (a lot of really fine non-fiction as well), enjoyed some good concerts, and discovered a whack of new music. (That was one of my "resolutions" for the year that I really did accomplish.) There were many wonderful evenings spent with friends at various bars/pubs/cafes. And while I didn't get as much personal writing as I had hoped, I did manage to make some extra cash with some freelance work (it tends to go to a good cause: an expensive dinner with the lovely A.) and took on some writing assignments at work. My intellectual health is fairly reasonable, although of course it could always be better.

It's good to feel so optimistic about my future - knowing, of course, that things can change in an instant. But let's give a positive shout-out to 2008!