Guess Who's Back, Back Again

Jonny's back, tell a friend.


I loved Eminem in high school, along with Avril Lavigne, Good Charlotte, and Ludacris. That was back when I thought their songs actually had a deeper meaning. I've grown up a little since then, but every once in a while I pull out those records and relive the days of teenage angst and desperation.


I really haven't made that much progress since then.


I am still desperate for change. Something. Anything.


For the longest time, I thought that meant I needed a drastic change. I thought I wanted to end my life. I thought other people wanted me to end my life. Yeah, wtf?


I've made it past that by jumping off a different type of ledge. I dared myself to live.


I'm not going to lie: a lot of you played a major role in keeping me here. For that, I am so, so, so thankful.


And so, here I am, still desperate for change.


In 2010 I learned many lessons, but one seems to say it best: stop trying to define the change and just go with it.


That's really hard for me. I am compulsive and like routine. I like labels. I am a professional self-saboteur. I am a million levels of Angry Birds, a flimsy structure meant to cave from the start.


One thing I know how to do is fall apart. In the last year, I learned to let that happen. Stop trying to keep things together. It was like opening a closet that's fill top to bottom and holding the doors closed until finally they ruptured and all the contents came spilling out; dirty laundry, skeletons, and all.


That will not be happening in 2011. Well, at least not as often. I don't have time for holding it all together. I have five classes (perhaps four, if I drop one, like I want to) this coming semester. I have a new job. Long story, got fired from the last one and was really, really lucky to find a new one within a week. This is Michigan peeps. Yeah, the one state that declined in population from 2000. We are cool here. And unattractive, apparently.


New job, school, fitness, and who knows what else will come up. I intend to be so busy in 2011, that breaking down is out of the question.


Am I setting myself up for failure? Probably. BUT, more importantly, I am setting myself up to have accomplished a few things before the inevitable FAIL. That way, I have those successes to fall back on and I am expecting them to bounce me back into pushing forward again. Two steps forward, one step back is fine by me.


Perhaps this makes no sense and I am contriving something that will never pan out. I am willing to take that risk. I am willing to jump off this ledge because as far as I see if there are two ledges to fall off. One has a certain end, the other opens to more and more ledges. I am still desperate for change, but I see change in a different light. Roses and rainbows may not be in the future, but I'll take anything of doom and gloom.


I think I could get used to jumping.


Thankfully, no trailer park girls were going round the outside, round the outside, round the outside back then.