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Musings
And so another year gone, and I barely felt it.
Things have settled a bit for me here in this middle of nowhere wasteland. There were a LOT of moments during the year that I was so tempted to just throw in the towel and just pack up and go (where? over east, back home, overseas, anywhere but here), but the business grew a lot this year that I felt a bit bad for wishing I was elsewhere most of the time. And Daz just worked so hard this year, it seemed a bit churlish to not acknowledge the hard yards he put in.
But apart from that bit of childishness, it wasn't a bad year.
There was a reversal of roles: from Daz the eternal optimist to Mik the eternal optimist (hard to believe, no?) I actually had no choice, I had to play the optimist to balance out all the frustration and negativity that Daz had to deal with running his own business. But I wasn't without faults. This past year, because I was miserable living where I was, I found solace in material things. And for the first time ever, I reverted to a facet of my personality I thought had been dead and buried way back in high school.
This last year was the year of the material craving, luxury goods and brand names. From shoes and bags, to electronics and food. Even to everyday stuff like soap and shampoo; it all just started to get out of hand. I'm not proud of it, but it was my way of coping. And because I didn't want to have to think about it, ruminate or justify, I avoided blogging. The me-me-me thing built up in my head until I started to be really unbearable: I walked around irritable most of the time, impatient and insufferable.
Until yesterday.
Daz and I were cleaning up the flat, doing merciless throwing-out-of-stuff. And in the middle of it all, we lay down on the carpet and started talking. Deep, gut-wrenching talk about whether we were both happy, why we weren't, where we were at in life and where we wanted to be. And what our dreams were, whether they were still the same and whether they were still achievable.
And I'm glad that we did that; we both came away with new realisations. We got so caught up in work and materialism that we both started to veer into paths we never wanted to go on. But the talk cleared both our heads and hearts and it's amazing that today we woke up a lot happier, a lot calmer and a lot more determined to achieve our shared goals. Which is always a good thing isn't it? And just to clarify, I don't mean being materialistic is a totally bad thing either. It only becomes bad when you need it to be happy, or if you live beyond your means and get yourself into debt.
Oh, and one last thing (before you snore off into the sunset haha). I'll probably start blogging a lot more.
Happy New Year!