New Year's Eve

Tonight is New Year's Eve. The last night of 2011. Actually, right now, it's the last 57 minutes of 2011.
This past year literally flew by for me.
I know that many people say that about every year, but I don't. In my life, they don't. Not usually, at any rate. Not for a long, long while.
For so many years, the time just crawled for me. Some months seemed to last years in and of themselves. The only times that ever seemed to move too quickly were the summer months, but even those were in no hurry to move along. I felt very much like the description of a person stuck inside a time warp.
Some people that I have told this to, in the past, claimed to be envious and tried to convince me of my great fortune. They just did NOT understand.
I was drowning. Drowning in a vast, never-ending sea of non-accomplishment, never moving forward, never reaching goals, never being able to set goals that reached beyond the day. It was pure terrorizing torture for me.
For people who have never lived in such a state, and yearned for progress and achievement, they simply will never be able to grasp why a seemingly calm and even-keeled life could ever be described as "terrorizing torture". They will jump to the conclusion that I am too far-reaching, lacking in contentment, living in a state of want. I know this, because they always did.
But i don't.
I'm happy with very few "things". I appreciate them, I'm not anti-thing, I don't preach the non-possession mantra...I just don't find them to fill me the way I need. It's just not about stuff.
I wanted to learn. To experience. To see and do. To go to museums and read every single placard (oh, i know...but i love it...don't go to a museum with me. Or just be prepared to occupy yourself somehow. I won't make you read them or look at anything with me, just let me do what i want and nobody will get hurt, lol~!).
I wanted to walk for miles through the woods, up the mountains, on the beach...
Drive and drive and drive until I got to some new place that was just itching to be explored...by me.
To spend time listening to people and getting to really know THEM. To see how the look in their eye would change as they talked about a subject, to watch their body language, to hear their voices explain a joy, or a sadness...
But I wasn't allowed to do any of those things.
Stay home. Isolated. Clean the house, for hours and hours and hours.
Yeah...time dragged.
When everything began to tear to pieces, time still moved terribly slowly, but it was so painful that no amount of activity could make it go quickly enough. There just wasn't a fast way through it. And I knew at the time that the pace was necessary, even though I just really really really wanted it gone. It was truly better to go through the experience at the time as much as possible in order to avoid needing to revisit it later.
So...bring in 2011...
Busy, busy year. Full of many goals. Not resolutions, I don't do those. Silliness, in my opinion. I just felt, deep inside, that this past year was for movement, for running and breathing and shouting in the wind. To throw fear out the window and walk on paths not yet made.
I've done my best to do all of those things.
I've met amazing people this year.
I've tasted foods that I would never have gone near before.
I have faced dogmas and rote stereotypes and challenged them brutally. As a result, I've thrown most of them out the window as nothing more than a reaction of fear to a complete unknown.
I lost my religion, but have been regaining spirituality.
I've taught myself, when in a situation that I am uncertain of, to quickly sum up the fatality risk and if it is within the acceptable range, to quicky breathe 3 times and then jump. "20 Seconds of Insane Courage". :) Not insanity...I have not lost my reason or rational thought. I've lost my fear, in large part. Or at least, the fear of fear.
So, 2011 has flown.
I try to take stock of self and accomplishment, progress and need, as time moves along so that there isn't the long process of retrospect and analysis after the fact. So, I do not sit in reflection for much more than a bit on New Year's Eve.
Heading into 2012, which hits here in 17 minutes, I am excited. A slight feeling of apprehension, but that's part of the 3 quick breathes and then jump type. All that I can do is to keep moving forward. I will not ever go back to being stuck. Maybe someday the physical self will be limited, but I refuse to allow my mind, for as long as I have command of it, to be held back.
What will 2012 bring? What's in store? I don't know. I don't put expectations on the time and the people around me in that way. I don't want to miss the beautiful things that may happen because they don't look like the expectations that I envisioned. That is blind foolishness.
Life is going to be full of many adventures. Not all are going to be great, or even good, I know that. There will be challenges that I will wish were not happening. There will be stresses and worries that will try me and that will take me to tears while I fight them out in my heart and head. I know this. That's just life.
But I know that it will bring me beauty and joy and excitement. I hope that it will find a direction for me to move more confidently and boldly into jobwise. I know that it will NOT be boring, not in the least.
I look forward to waking in the morning and feeling happy...I plan on losing that dreaded "swimming back up into the day" feeling that still rides into the wakeful state with me. I look forward to staying up too late, to loving too strongly, to playing too hard and working too much.
I look forward to living.
Every day when I walk I open my arms wide to the world and universe and envision my heart opening to the same...I symbolically releases my fears and the expectations I find myself hiding behind and clinging to. Sometimes this hurts, like I've mentioned in other posts, and I do cry. I feel that pain in my very center, but I know it will heal as the release occurs. I know this sounds all "woo hoo" and crap, but it isn't. I'm not an earth momma, or a spook or anything. I want to be open to all the good that life may show to me and I may miss something amazing if I am holding too tightly to other things.
So, hello, 2012. I welcome you. You already know my dreams and desires, and I know that I will not be able to predict what will come.
I'm here. Whatever you bring to me, i will be there.
(btw...i have no concerns about that ridiculous mayan calendar thing...but even if it is true, nothing I can do about it, right?)
HAPPY NEW YEAR ~
(posting as is, edit later if i choose to...5.5 minutes to the year)