Sock it to me

What is it about the New Year that makes it the cradle of expectant change? Actually, that's a stupid question with an obvious answer.

Still... I did feel unusually strong on the treadmill at the gym today after spending the last week of 2006 feeling run down and out of sorts... I guess I took this past weekend mostly off from working out (save a cold but fruitful 4 miles outdoors before the New Year hit its first post meridian) which might account for some of this perceived strength, but there was something a little bit more in my treadmill-regulated 5 mile rumble, an assertiveness in my approach that seemed new and unfamiliar... a certain level of control absent from my runs even at the top of my half-marathon training in September.

Boys and girls, that's the word of the year for 2007: Control. C-O-N-T-R-O-L. You heard it here first. Not "truthiness" or "wikiality" or even "Megamerican." No.

Control is the name of the game. (Is there a board game called Control? There should be. Somebody get on that.) Control, the more I think about it, is at the root of soooo many of life's twists and turns. At least, it's at the root of mine.

I've been hesitant to commit in detail to the blogosphere the things that have been going on in my life for the last 6 months or so explicitly, and really, for most of 2006. Mostly because... well, for all I like to write and sing things in public, I tend to be a very private person when it comes to feelings and personal behavior and tend to be purposefully vague when talking about the particulars of my emotional life. Right. Says the guy with the blog.

I tend to write lyrics, post them, and hope that people I know and love can connect the dots, and maybe a few people I don't know come along for the ride too... Anyway, I think I'm inching closer to being able to write about 2006 in detail, in prose... Life is, as I'm fond of quoting to impress people at parties, lived forwards and understood backwards.

So there's good chance 2007 will be about finally starting to really understand 2006, and I do believe this space will come in handy for that process. We'll see... This I do understand: There are things one can control, and there are things one can't. And it's way better to focus on the good things one can control. Difficult at times, because sometimes those good things one can control dwindle to a precious few, but... there's always something.

Regardless of how dark it is, how hopeless things seem, how senseless other people's behavior gets, there is always something you can take ownership of to create light, and love, and hope, and a flame, and let the world know that you're sick of taking shit, sick of feeling like the universe is ending, sick of being treated like dirt, sick of being taken advantage of... Control is like a box of chocolates...

No, that was life that was the box of chocolates. Maybe control is one of the chocolates in the box of life? Um... that didn't sound quite right, did it? Scratch that last line of thought. Control is like... well, it seems like you walk a delicate balance with it... let's leave it at that for now.

I have so many other thoughts, so many other pertinent ideas about it but... Let's just take it one day, one entry at a time. In all seriousness (I hate when people say that), here's to a New Year full of control (the good kind) and understanding.

And maybe a dirty word or two for good measure.

xo j