Goals For 2012

Hopefully you’ll forgive me if I ramble about some things that aren’t necessarily horror-related for a bit. I’m just the sort of person who needs to be held accountable when they commit to things, and I can’t think of a better way to do so than to commit to them in front of nearly 20,000 people.

Goal #1: Lose more weight. Some of you who’ve followed this blog for a while know that in 2010 I lost a veritable shit-ton, as they say, of weight. My final deficit was just over a hundred pounds, which transitioned me from “sickening swamp monster” to “random chubby guy”. I’ve yo-yo’d up and down a bit in the year since because I’m a terrible stress-eater whose been terribly stressed, but I’m still nowhere near my old weight. The goal for this year is to further transition from “random chubby guy” to, uh, “healthy person”. I just pinned up a new Seinfeld calendar — I mark the day with a black slash mark if I’ve eaten healthily, and a red if I’ve exercised — to guilt-trip myself into committing.

Goal #2: Get rid of the people who treat me like I don’t matter. I had an awful relationship in 2010, and on-and-off-again in 2011, that went to hell one year ago today. Positively terrible night, that one. It’s only recently that I’ve gotten away from that girl completely — and even then, it wasn’t by choice — and I’m still picking up the pieces. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve wasted an entire year of my life on a manipulative, emotionally-abusive hypocrite and I hate it. I’ve no intentions of ever speaking to her again, but I’d like to be able to stop thinking about her altogether. That’s the goal. It’s not just limited to her, though; I’m finding more and more that a lot of the people I consider my friends don’t care nearly as much about me as I do about them. I’m getting rid of those people. I have enough trouble caring about myself and it’s time I stop letting other people reinforce my self-loathing. I’ve still got a few tight-knit friends and I’m gonna go ring in 2012 with them as soon as I’m done typing this.

Goal #3: Accomplish my one — and only — life goal. I’ve wanted to make my own film for as long as I can remember. Since I was a kid. I’ve mulled over idea after idea in my head, and have over the years become fixated on one in particular. And I’m finally working on it. Open on my desktop now is the first 45 pages of what I’m anticipating to be an 80 page script. I’m over halfway there. I’m doing online classes this semester so I’ll have time to finish it, and polish it, and be ready to film sometime in Autumn. I’ve even worked out the money. It’s not a lot, but I don’t need a lot. It’ll cover what I do need. I’ve been hesitant to announce this on here because I’m not done with the script, but I’m very-cautiously-and-rather-nervously doing so now. There’s a certain poetic justice to announcing it today, I think. The goal is to market it via tumblr and self-distribute as cheaply as possible. If I made a horror movie and sold it on the cheap-and-easy I’m sure at least a few of you would buy it, right? If you would, excellent. If not, that’s okay too. At least I’ll have accomplished the only dream I can ever remember having.

Goal #4: Figure out what to do with myself once I’ve accomplished my life goal. I’m currently working towards an Associates in Arts at the local community college. The idea thus far has been to finish that and then transfer, um, somewhere, and pursue a career in education as an English teacher. I can’t do that, though. I feel like it’s settling. I don’t wanna teach people how to write — I wanna write. Or direct. Or, ideally, both. I want to create things. And part of me really wants to drop out and pursue that goal properly. Or maybe finish up my AA and pursue it? Or, at the very least, find some go-to-college-and-get-a-degree type job that I actually feel passionate about, and then pursue my dream on the side. Either way, I can’t see myself as a teacher — or anything else, really, except for my two totally-unrealistic-dream-jobs — and I need to fix that and make my life the life I want it to be. Like, now. I can’t stomach the idea of letting myself become a failure anymore.

I feel like a weight’s been lifted from my shoulders. Sheesh. Thanks for reading this, if you did. Feel free to inbox some comments or questions or thoughts on your own resolutions!