twenty eleven

If there’s one day I blog in 2012, it’ll be January 1st. Don’t expect too much thereafter.

I had a really, really great year. It started off fairly average, actually – in a generally stable lull, albeit one in which I wasn’t happy with any particular aspect of my life. I quickly grew to dislike my job, realized that my relationship was going nowhere fast, and didn’t like what I saw in the mirror.

The turning point, honestly, was the breakup. I moved out in May. I thought I would be crushed by the weight of loneliness, but I wasn’t – I finally saw how amazing my friends were, and that was a huge factor in avoiding expected depression. A week later, as I was posting an ad on Craigslist for someone to rid us of a couch, I came upon this:

… which soon became this:

… which was absolutely and definitely my best purchase of 2011. Except he was free.

I went on a bit of a bender in late May, made some regrettable decisions that were supposed to make me feel better about myself but didn’t, and made the mistake of pity dating. It was terrible.

After being told by Pity Boyfriend that we must break up if I couldn’t promise that we’d get married (…?), I went to Italy with one of my best friends. She and I had an incredible two weeks of eating, drinking, partying, asking each other for poison the following morning, and auditioning for the roles of sea lions at the beach. I loved Rome, spent way too much money, and didn’t make any regrettable decisions with boys! Score!

I came back to work and realized that I really, really hated my job. Several weeks later, I was in talks regarding a new one. I pushed myself to skate again, which was the best decision I’d made all year, and lost 11% of myself as a result. I was in a car accident with some of my closest friends, lost faith in law enforcement, regained faith in American doctors, and accrued a stunning gross total of $2,300 in medical bills for a 2-minute CT scan and a Vicodin prescription. Between three insurance companies and medical payments coverage, I’m still sorting out $1,900 of this for no other reason than pure incompetence on their part.

I went to Russia in a neck brace, had a perfectly uneventful time as per, came back, and began devising creative ways to jab icepicks into my cheeks to dull the pain of my job.

This is where 2011 really gets interesting. Some earlier networking paid off, I got a fantastic offer for a new position, and all of a sudden things just took off. I was booking business class airfare to Algeria and Spain, meeting with UN officials and mayors of significant foreign capitals, and receiving discretionary bonuses greater than I would have earned had I stayed at my previous place of torture  employment until the end of the year. I was trusted to do important, meaningful work. I was neither micromanaged nor overloaded. I could learn from my superiors and trusted their judgment fully. It was a brave new world.

I met someone. This changed me in a way I can’t explain because I’ve never felt that way before. I went to Algeria, spent a week in a refugee camp, failed to properly party in Paris, unexpectedly ended up in a geothermal lagoon in Iceland, and rounded the year off with some really extensive shopping. Ouch.

I have amazing plans for 2012, and I can’t wait to see them come to life. Happy New Year!

Left to right, in order: an Algerian camel; Algerian desert; fields of France; morning Paris; my favorite place in all of Paris; and Grindavik, Iceland.

         

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