2006: The Year In Review

I figure I've got a small window of opportunity to discuss the year that was before it's passe.

So what was 2006 for me? Well, after all of my thinking and wishing and contemplating, I still don't know. Perhaps 2006 can go down as the Year of Uncertainty. It was a year of big changes. There was a new job. A new place to live. The splintering of the Gaggle, which was a lot more traumatic than you might expect.

In moments, it was an emotional year. I think I found myself crying more than the Chef ever did. I tried to laugh a lot but at the same time, there were several moments that the need to cry completely overtook me. Like the morning that HotAss and I had breakfast at Brother Juniper's, and somewhere in the middle of a San Diegan omelet, I cracked up for no good reason.

I cried a lot in 2006, and I felt sad a lot more often than I cried. Hotass could probably describe me as a perfect horror to live with because I cried or felt sad too much. Maybe I cried because they were gossiping. Maybe I cried because the elastic was shot in my pantyhose. Who knows? I cried at the drop of a hat in 2006.

But on a personal level, I can confess that most of the year was a time of a midlife crisis for me, although I'm too young for a midlife crisis and I'm too old for a quarter-life crisis. At any rate, it's a crisis of age that has not quite run its course.

For me,thirty-four is that age where you realize it's time you get your shit together (referred to as "fecal cohesion") but you're still drawn to the stupidity and the carefree times of your youth. There is an overwhelming part of me that longs for the La Vie Boheme - waiting tables at a non-chain restaurant (even though I would grow tired of working for tips in less than a day) and renting a house in Midtown, sparsely decorated with roadside sofas and Che Guevara prints (although I couldn't tell you what Che did, but they seem like they're the thing to have if you're a bohemian). But there is a part of me that wishes I had a carefree life. A big part of me.

Instead, I drive a Honda to my very respectable job that requires me to keep regular haircuts and a sensible wardrobe.

So if anything, 2006 might be the year of trying to find myself (again), and when 2007 rolled around, I realized I might still be missing. Only my face isn't on milk cartons.

So in 2006, I did NOT find myself. Nor did I lose myself anymore than I already was. In fact, I think I was probably right where I had been all along. Sitting here. Waiting. Wishing and still trying to figure out what the next step was.

Here's hoping that 2007 will be better.