Sitting at the Tully’s, disappointed by the lack of internet, and just watching what’s left of the blanket of snow that was on the ground, I sip my horrible “vanilla latte” and just tap my fingers as I try to figure out what I want to say.

I’m at my second home again. My home, where I grew up and left all my troubles behind as I started to build a new life years and years ago. It feels different. Very different. Because again, it is not home anymore.

Staying in a beautiful new house with just my mom and my brother. Living in a new city where everywhere seems unfamiliar even though I’ve been up here and explored from time to time. Just a lot of different pieces that are gone from what I’m use to.

Coming back for Christmas. It just seems that is the only constant now and even that doesn’t seem a constant for it might change from year to year with different circumstances.

Gazing through the windows, watching the light traffic fly by in this cold and gloomy Sunday, I sit at ease, just thinking. It feels good. It feels right. The weather just sets the mood.

Since it is Christmas time, it only means one thing. A Bah Humbug to all as I sit here and try to type out my yearly diatribes of wisdom and knowledge that I came across this past year.

What can I say? It has been a year. Difficult and easy. A year that has gone by too fast; a blink of an eye and it is gone. Rereading what I wrote last year, what seemed so long ago, but it really wasn’t because everything I wrote in that one still seems so relevant and fresh.

2008. The year of big decisions.

I was presented with a dilemma last year. The possibility of quitting my job and moving home. That was the biggest decision that I have to make. It was huge, especially when I know I really wasn’t ready to do that. Even now, I doubt my readiness to move back here. I’m just not ready.

Luckily for me, I was able to find a new job. That preempted me to make that dreaded decision. I didn’t have to move home after all; just not yet.

Susan helped me get the job. Though I got the job in February of this past year, I applied for it, well at least to RPA way back in October when I was in China. She sent me an email regarding an IT position and I submitted my resume when I got back. But, it just took Blair a while to get back to me because of circumstances. I wasn’t holding my breath. I did have another option later in February.

I was fortunate enough to end things on a fairly ok manner at JGA. I didn’t have to lie to Michelle. The timing was just right as John laid it down that JGA was closing their Santa Monica office and moving it out to Chino. I wasn’t going to drive the fuck out to Chino to do my job, so Michelle just told me to start looking. What she didn’t know was that I had interviews lined up already during that time. Timing, right?

I maybe lucky after all.

Any who, I got my job and honestly, this has been the most stress free I’ve ever been in my life. Not much stress at all. I’ve wrote it in an earlier blog, but I’m working with IT people. They understand IT and the things that go with it.

Sigh.

It was a great decision I was forced to make. Needing to get a new job, because honestly, JGA was just a bad atmosphere. They just don’t appreciate or understand the basis of IT. I don’t know, maybe I am just a big complainer, but they just don’t have their shit together.

But knowing what is going to happen with JGA now, I’m glad I got the fuck out. FUCKING GLAD!

Sigh. Year of tough decisions.

It started out with trouble, me appearing at the end of something. Looking back, it was all bad timing. Maybe things would have been better if we met under different circumstances, no, if we met during different times in our lives. Just maybe.

I understand her position during the early time of our relationship, torn between us two. She loved him and he was there for her for the past couple of years. It was hard to leave and I had to be patient. Maybe it was just this that just strained the relationship so early on. There was a lot of distance between us early on I thought and I just couldn’t deal with it. It felt like she wasn’t there, but eventually it did get better. It did get much better and actually became really good.

As she made that break from him and was free to commit. Well, not commit. Free to just see me and not worry about him. But having been in a relationship for so long is it ever that easy of a break; that clean? Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe that was the root of many of the problems.

She’s not to blame for the end of things. I’m not to blame for the end of things. I guess, obviously, we were both to blame for the end of things. Just the way life is, I guess.

I just needed space. I for some reason, being the hermit that I am, just needed my space. Maybe I just needed way more than I was given. It was hard, and I know this is a character flaw of mine, but I love my space and it was just difficult for me to see it slipping away.

It’s not that it was slipping away. No, it was more about being encroached on as we would spend more and more nights together. I know in the end, that is something that I will have to change in myself, to better myself, if I ever want to be iin a relationship again. I need to make that compromise. And I guess she wasn’t the one I was willing to compromise with.

There were many other issues that we had with each other. Things better left unsaid, things better left between us. But sadly, things just didn’t work out.

I am a knight, a paladin, gallant and chivalrous, always wanting to save, to fix. I did my best, but I can’t save anyone. It’s not my job nor my place. But I did try and that was my fault.

I shouldn’t have tried to fix something that wasn’t mine to fix. I couldn’t. I have no control over that. I can only help and was just blind to see that not everyone operates the same way as I do. I can repress things for the most part, or just fix them on my own, with time, slowly letting things go and just getting over it as I put my problems into words.

Looking back, there were many many great times. There were many times where I felt that she could be the one, that yes, I actually found someone that I can care for and just be with. She can always make me laugh. Even now, she can still make me laugh, being the smartass that she is. She can very well take it as she can dish it out.

We even met each other’s families for the most part. Grant it I was never in a relationship long enough to warrant such a thing per se, but she was the first girl I brought over to meet “family”. Granted it wasn’t my mom, but she met Great Uncle’s family, Sister and Gifu, Amy, Kent, and she met Hien and they all seem to get along fine. I’m sure if we were still together at that time, she would have met mom also. Sigh.

But, it just didn’t happen. There were just too many things between us.

After what happened between us, it was rough. Even now, she’s still in my thoughts. Maybe she’s in my thoughts because I actually do care about her, or maybe she’s in my thoughts because of the pang of guilt for what I did, but I don’t know.

Ending it was tough, but deep inside, my gut is telling me it is the right thing to do. The timing…just wasn’t right. She’s just not the one.

But as now, as we have reconnected, not as lovers, but as friends…or what feels like friendships, I’m glad. I’m glad that we’re able to do that, to maintain our friendship, to be able to do that. I’m glad and deeply thankful for it. ‘Cause, even though it doesn’t seem like it for what I did, I really do care about her. She’s a great person, who I want to see happy. Hopefully she is, and hopefully she can find that special someone that can give her what I couldn’t.

Sigh.

Tough decisions.

That was the toughest breakup I ever had to deal with. It was the most heart wrenching and the most draining. To hurt someone like that, to just cause them so much pain, I don’t think I ever want to do that again. It just makes me hesitant in getting into another relationship. Even now, though I know with certainty that I eventually will, but I don’t want to be in a relationship again just to avoid that. I hate making those decisions, but I had to. It was the best thing…for the both of us.

Never again, so I say. But being the realist, I know better.

Sigh. Tough decisions.

Maybe Kirsten is right. I’m just a little lost puppy who doesn’t know what I want. I see what I want right before me, but I just can’t go through with it and pursuit it because something is just holding me back. I can’t cross that line. Maybe I been there, starting something at the end of something and I don’t want it to happen again. I don’t know.

Maybe I just can’t do it because I don’t want to be the reason. Maybe she is looking for someone, keeping her options open, a backup plan in case things do turn south, I don’t know, but I don’t know if I can be there.

Speaking with others, they give me another viewpoint that I can see and understand, but I for some reason can’t do. It just doesn’t feel right. Just be there, hang out and maybe things will happen. But, should I even take the chance, let it go that far and take a chance.

I know my heart, as fickle as it is, I tend to obsess over things that I can’t have. I don’t know. But hanging out, it just feels nice, being able to talk to each other. It just feels good. But, honestly, I really don’t know. I don’t know much of anything anymore.

The feelings don’t feel as strong as they did the first couple of times that we hung out. Maybe it is because it was new and it was the only new thing that happened since my breakup and I am looking for it. Maybe it is because deep inside, she was untouchable, so there wasn’t much pressure in it. I don’t know, but things seem to have changed a bit. Ha…maybe I just over thought things and am just a jumble mess of feelings. Maybe I’m just keeping my options open.

I don’t know. It was a tough decision for me to just tell her that I am interested in her and that I can’t see her anymore. She understood, thankfully. At least she knows, right?

But things do feel a little different.

Sigh.

For the most part, it was a balanced year. A year no different than any year that came before. I was pushed and tried, needing to make the best of things and just slacking on everything else. It was a tough year, a year that tested my mettle, what I am made of.

Looking back, it was a year that made me stronger as a person. It was also a year that just left me yearning for more. More out of life, more out of my life. I just want more, because ultimately there is just more growing up that I need to do. Tons more.

I know that every year I learn new things about my life, slowly becoming a better and better person, man that I know that I am destined to be. This year is like any other stepping stone to the next level.

It was a balanced year of both good and bad. But nothing is ever that bad that it is devastating. I roll with the punches, needing to make the decisions that I needed to make and dealing with the consequences, both good and bad, for the decisions that I make.

Looking back at all of these years, these 29 years and 8 months of my life, lessons learned, goals achieved and failed, it’s all about choices and decisions. Do what you need to do with whatever decisions that are presented to you. Make the best one for yourself; make the best one that feels right and hope for the best.

There are parts of me that feel that I could have done more this year; that could have done much much more in my life, though I did do many things this year.

Being able to go to Yosemite again and hiking, not alone as usual, but with Hien, it was great. Granted it was cold and snowing at the top of Yosemite Falls, but it was a sight to see and something to experience. I’ll always remember it, being at the top of the falls and just walking in the snow. It was beautiful as it was breath taking. Though we didn’t get to see out into the Valley, it was still beautiful to say the least.

I will never forget driving up to Reno with my mom and brother and getting pulled over for driving too fast. All in front of my mom. There’s a first for everything right? But it was just good to go and just do things with family again. More family trips. I guess it is not a matter that I get to go places, ’cause I can always go anywhere. There’s nothing holding me back. It is a matter of going with them, because I really don’t get to see them that much, or do things with them as much anymore because I am a thousand miles away.

I was able to visit two brand new cities for me, Reno and the beautiful and lovely Chicago. My how much I love Chicago. Maybe I did go at the right time where the weather was nice, but it’s gorgeous with the skyline and the laid back nature. Plus the food. Any city where I can get “good eats” is a city I want to be.

Spending Thanksgiving with another set of family and just strengthening my bond with my cousins, well Cynthia and Aaron, was great also. I don’t know, as written before, spending the weekend up there with them, seeing them together, it just makes me feel less and less like an adult and more like a big kid. They’re in it, having talks and needing to make the tough decisions that will shape their lives in the future and each having to make compromises. Grant it that they are a lil’ older than I am, but still, so very grown up and mature.

Spending time with Julie and Phinney and their family in Portland, though it being only a evening, but it just felt good. That was one of the first times that Phinney and I talked about family and stuff, instead of just superficial stuff. It was just nice family bonding that I quietly yearn for. It was just great being with their kids and just spending the day with Julie and just talking about life and shit. Just nice.

It just makes me wonder what the hell am I doing with my life. What am I doing with my life? Just wandering listlessly going here and there doing my own thing, taking no responsibilities on things that don’t matter to me. I don’t know. It just makes me realize how much growing up I have left to do in me.

I’m going to be 30 in the next few months. Yes, it’ll be another year older, another year wiser and all that blah blah bullshit, but I’ll be 30. Many people mark it as a time to see what they have accomplished in their life and I tell myself that it won’t be the case. It’s not…but I will be 30.

Different people live different lives and do different things, so there is no use to compare my life to other people and see what they have accomplished at the age of 30. It’ll just make me depressed to see that they have accomplished more than I did. It will and why would I do that to myself. My masochistic days are over.

30.

In a way, I am looking forward to my thirties. 30 is the new 20, so goes the saying. Maybe they are right. Maybe I am right. I don’t feel like an adult at all and maybe that is it. Like I said in a earlier post, the 29 I feel this past year doesn’t feel like the 29 that my parents gone through. They felt more adult, felt more together, felt more responsible than my slacker habits and live for myself attitude.

Bring on my thirties. Maybe I’ll be more proactive in my life, as I just grow up and focus. My twenties are over, my teens are over, playtime is over and now it is the time to just buckle down and focus on the things ahead of me while taking it one day at a time.

Maybe my life will be the same in my thirties as it was in my twenties, but maybe it will be different, very different. Setting out goals like I do every year and actually working towards them. Be less indecisive and just decide on something dammit and just do it.

Just maybe.

I know I still have four months before this all happens, but I just can’t wait.

It’s funny how the year of tough decisions is finally ending and I still have a tough decision to make on my final days. The decision to just change my life. Again, this year tested my mettle. It made me see what I am capable of and ultimately what I am not. I know what I can and cannot do. There are many gray areas also, but I guess they are decisions left for another time; a decision for when I am ready to make them. I’m just not ready yet to do them.

Along with the tough decisions, 2008 was a year that made me realize, made me see with more clarity that I still have a lot of growing up left to do. There is a lot more maturing left in me.

I kid with everyone that I am an old man that I was born old, but you are never too old to learn new things and get older. I know I am old, but I am young in years with a lot more learning and growing and maturing left in me. Something I look forward to and wait with open arms as it will make me a better person. It will make me a better man. It will make me a man that can look at his reflection in the mirror and be proud of the man looking back at him.

It is also fitting, at the end of the year, watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button I realize that living backwards is the only way to go. To be unafraid, to be young and go head on in life though it may be limited with the time you have left in this world. Life is long, but time is short. My life is limited to do the things that I want to do. Live without regret. Live life to the fullest. Live. Just do the things I want to do and explore and see things. Do things. Live.

Live.

I’m an old man. I was born old. I’m an old soul. There are many aspects where I am still a kid at heart. I’m not going to lose that. Live like I’m young, carelessly, unafraid. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and live without regret.

There were many years…a year of change, a year of growth, a year that I will never forget, and a year of tough decisions. What year will 2009 bring? I don’t know, maybe the year of living?

All I know is that with each year, I get older, wiser, learning new things and making mistakes. I’ll take everything and apply it to the next year, preparing me for the blank canvas that is before me, ultimately painting the masterpiece that is my life.

2009, what will you bring me?