the last goodbye

2014 was a year that I pretty much hated through and through.  I spent the better part of the year spending money on repairs to the house and then ended the year finding that all the repairs (every single one!!!) resulted in problems.  While the abdominal pain that plagued me for most of 2013 went away, I am now walking with an aching right hip and left knee.  And then in last couple of weeks, I started getting sharp pain in the lower back that was sometimes so excrutiating that I could barely walk, and then I added to my problems by crushing my right ribcage with my elbow while crawling under the lightwell stairs.  Basically I am ringing out 2014 as a complete cripple.  So yeah, 2014, you basically suck, so fuck off, you bugger.

But when I come out the other side, I can see great things in 2015:

-  New Madonna album Rebel Heart.
-  No more mortgage!  Ok, I might still end up with debt because I might need to take out a loan to do more repairs to the house, but still.
-   I think I might win the lottery next year.  The fact that a child molester can win a $3M lottery strangely gives me hope that I too can win.  I might not be as deserving as a new immigrant or a single working mother or even an elderly, but I surely am more deserving than a child molester.  See, secretly, in the back of my mind, I think oh, maybe the best things don't always happen to me because I am not really the best person.  Sometimes I am not nice to my mother, too impatient, too cheap with the tippings, too petty, too selfish, too scared of life.  But when a child molester wins the lottery, I think I can safely erase those self-doubting thoughts from my head.
-   Mad Max Fury Road.  Yeah screw Star Wars or the Avengers - the 2015 movie to wait for is Mad Max with Tom Hardy and Charlize Theron.
-   Rob Thomas' iZombie. Is this Veronica Mars as a zombie?
-  Jurassic World, with Star Lord!!!  
-  Crimson Peak - a gothic period haunted mansion movie starring Charlie Hunnam, Tom Hiddleston, and Jessica Chastain and directed by Guillermo del Toro.  I already have goosebumps.
-  Clean living - I am seriously going to make an effort to live with less clutter.  I am not going to buy things that take up a lot of space and will make 2015 the year in which I get rid of more stuff than I take in.  I am going to reverse that pattern.
-  I think I've learned that being a good person is not the same as being polite and nice.  I always want to be a better, more upstanding person, but I am tired of being just the polite and nice guy.  Sometimes I think I even come across as too meek.  Argh - I hate that word.  2015 will be the year that I become more of an asshole, with a good, kind heart of course.  I am going to practice being an ass.  I read somewhere that skill is just a product of repetition.  Basically I don't want people to like me but I want them to respect me.

2015 will be better than 2014.  That's all I want or demand - better.  Even just a little better is good enough. If that's all we ever want from life, not perfection but improvement over the day before or the year before, I think we should be able to go to bed with a clear mind and sleep peacefully.  For now, with hope in my pocket, I bid 2014 the last goodbye.