Beginnings of the Year

Not too many years ago, 2011 sounded like a date far into the future. The next decade began last year, in 2010 technically, but 2011 seems to take it that one step further. We can't pretend it's still hovering around the 2000s; we're firmly on the way to the 2050s now and that's just terrifying.

I suppose I had some small hope that, but 2011, I would be in a much different place than I was in 2001. That seemed to be a defining year for most of the world and for myself as well. I had hoped that in 10 years things around the world and closer to home would change, but they have not. The world is much the same, though perhaps a little worse off lately, and my life is not so different. The intervening years have certainly been full of different adventures and such, but at this particular moment in January 2011, my life is not so different than January 2001 (except there is less homework to be done).

This should, it can be said, be incentive enough for me to get on with my life and I am trying. I've widdened my job search to include anything that might earn me enough money so that I can move out on my own. I've been more open to relationships and the idea of maybe finding someone to settle down with before I'm 30. [A concept that seemed like a fantastic idea at age 21, but has mostly gone by the wayside since.] I am investigating other career options, at least in the short term. I am still hopeful about a potential PhD and have not given up that route, at least yet. I am pursuing travelling options for the year, if not for my actual birthday. Hopefully by September I will have travelled Somewhere I Have Never Been Before. I am trying to keep in touch with more friends, something that has also fallen by the wayside since I moved to England. I am also trying to keep busy and be more optimistic. I'm not certain how the last of these is going, especially after an exhausting day at work, but since I have only myself as company there is no one to complain that I am breaking a resolution already. I am determined that by January 2012 I will have figured my life out.

That, in itself, is the largest resolution of all and also the hardest to keep.