it was not until the last hours, the last local hours of 2005, that i could call it for what i wanted to call it. in japan they have arrived already several hours ago, as usual. i could say that by global standards, it was as 2006 rolled in that i could finally call it, a fascinating year. i had almost every breakdown that i had never wanted. quite a few things went wrong, although the year had started well enough, at least from the appearances, but then some-when in the summer, hell broke lose, or at least a damned stubborn relative arrived uninvited. besides the breakdowns, and do not ask me about the causality of either, there were some beautiful breakthroughs.
now, let me look at it this way, i said that i do not make new year's resolutions, and i do not. still, it has turned out that for the past ten years or so, the time between xmas and new year is a good one to take inventory of past twelve months. i ask myself what i wanted to achieve, and i assess where i am relative to that. there is always some time needed for planning and evaluation, it is a time to assess my life and my goals. this time is as good as any, and the forced break in europe makes this a natural offering.
i discovered by living through the experience what a depression is. it was a bit like discovering what being pregnant is. it was not until i was pregnant for the second time that i realized that i had been in that state before, except that the first time it lasted only a few weeks and then i lost the embryo in what is a most natural early miscarriage. depression is a bit like that, it has visited me before, but somehow i always pulled myself up by the boot straps, and never called it that. but then this summer came and bang! one incident lead to another, and there i was in the middle of a full blown depression, and i could not see it. i was fortunate enough to have loving and caring friends and associates who caught on and offered their help. it was not a moment too early.
i wanted to have that manuscript of that story that i keep telling everybody i am writing, written. a dozen rough drafts later, i know where to go from here, but it is not finished, it is barely started. to think that i wanted to have finished by may 2005, does not make me feel too terribly good, but there is a time i too must say, fuck my feelings! it just did not happen.
we wanted a specific business venture off the ground, it did not happen yet in spite of the fact that we have all invested very many hours and kilometers in getting the ground work done. sometimes i suspect that i have here a gordian knot to untie... it is my challenge for 2006.
then there was the fact that i trained in karate for only the first half of the year, yet i was satisfied with it. given a left side tennis elbow, i decided to forgo of karate, and keep on training aikido. where am i? senseis and i are happy, and that is not being anywhere, and that is about right. but then happy is not the word either. i am here, that i am.
i did not spend much time in portugal this year, and a whole lot more time than planned in italy. as the year drew to a close, it was all much too evident what kind of breakdown i had had with the idea of spending more than six months in portugal. those who do not make plans, never know if they are on the path, or how far they have drifted. i am on the path, yet, the route seems to have changed, and the plan needs major revisions. gloria! this life is never boring.
i finally read a few books that i wanted to read, and although i put out many thousands of words, this feels just like the beginning. writing, aikido and the family seems to occupy my life, the rest may be just accessory.
that is the status of things around here, this is who i am: 1-borg-edited-welsh. it is ambiguous.
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