It is December 31st, 2013 and this year has been a strange one. I am left looking back with bewilderment. How did I start there; having my gallbladder out, discovering and recovering from the effects of a, perfectly legal and prescribed, drug that I didn't realize was having a drastic effect on my mental well being, and trying to get my life back on track after a year of anxiety so intense I wasn't even sure I should have lived through it at all, to here? Here is trying to help my spouse keep sane while working a job that asks too much and gives back too little, learning to live without the false hormonal sanity that estrogen brought at the cost of my nerves, realizing that who I thought I was and who I am are not the same but that it all somehow makes sense now that I am starting to see it, and trying to save my marriage from the stress of all these things and the myriad other stresses our minds and bodies, our own and otherwise, keep winging at us from the shadows. I am in a strange place.
Orbiting around all that, though, is this sense that I have things to share. I have ideas that need to be focused and formatted and presented to the world at large. I am not special, but my brain works in a way that not everyone's does and it has always seemed to be that there are conclusions that I can draw from certain premises that others don't seem to see; logical and relevant conclusions, just entirely different ones. A particularly surly and sarcastic Anthropology professor once, in a moment of complete seriousness, asked me if I was going to grad school, told me that I should, and offered to write me a letter if I needed one. I've been thinking about that a lot the past few days. That professor saw it, this ability to view situations in ways that others don't, and thought it was something that should be nurtured and educated. It's been two a half years since I finally graduated with a Bachelor's in Bullshit and I've done exactly nothing with it. I always told myself that I would continue to learn and grow, but life just kind of flows along and the learning and analyzing comes in fits and spurts, if at all. I've letting myself down. What's worse, is that locked into this brain that is no more special than any other brain, are ideas that other people need to hear and connections that can be drawn that other people need to see. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can draw them, but they aren't the connections that the majority is drawing. They need a voice that is louder, or even speaking at all.
So, that's where my mind is at the moment. I am a pixel upon a pixel in an ocean of pixels on a backdrop of even more. I am nothing to the universe, but I am something to those pixels who touch my own, even for a second, and I'd like that something to be something more than what it is. I have ideas I'd like to see seed and grow. They are never going to do that if they sit in my brain and ferment. We might end up with a nice brain brandy given enough time, but brandy left in the bottle indefinitely, even, is no good to anyone. It's time to crack open my skull and air the contents out a bit. It's been a long time since I've done any real thinking. It's time to start. So I leave you with this: A Single Blue Dot.
