Thursday, December 02, 2010

"Separation"

I'm not entirely certain about this Reverb 10 thing; I'm all for a month's worth of reflective writing prompts, but this "manifest what's next" business smacks of new-age jargon. I'm...skeptical, but for now I'm going to play along.

Today's (er, yesterday's) prompt is as follows:

December 1 One Word.
Encapsulate the year 2010 in one word. Explain why you’re choosing that word. Now, imagine it’s one year from today, what would you like the word to be that captures 2011 for you?
(Author: Gwen Bell)

I thought I'd be all clever and do something with statistical analysis, ie. "what is my most-used word of 2010?", but of course that would yield...[drumroll]

The

Not very inspiring. That, and I didn't want to spend an age collecting every post from 2010 and pasting it into a giant text file. I imagine some of the formatting text or html tags would get carried along and mess up the analysis anyway. Long story short, I got lazy. For what it's worth, I think the most-used "real word" on my blog (maybe just the front page, I'm not sure how the tool I fed the link to works) is "internet" or something? Not too exciting, and by no means unique to 2010.

Aw, man, I hate it when I have to do some real soul-searching! Alright, this year's word is "Separation"

This year, I got into a relationship that went long-distance for four months. That certainly qualifies as separation, even if we're back in the same place now (heck, I'm even typing up this post on her laptop :p). I spent the summer here in Halifax, attending school...separated from family and friends that I would have been seeing otherwise. Two...no, three good friends have moved away this year, and others are busy all the time or have become more distant for other reasons (I barely see ELI anymore, he's practically moved in with his girlfriend). I've been spending a year going to college and cleaning toilets, which is me becoming more distant (or...separated?) from the person I would like to be, and the achievements I would have liked to obtain at this point in my life.

I could have chosen "lonely" or maybe "distant" or something, but the first rings untrue: I still *have* a wonderful girlfriend, I can't say I'm wanting for company. Distant...doesn't quite cover it. I've been far from home for going on three years now...distance isn't really the problem. There is an ongoing process of separation as people leave, or prepare to leave for new horizons (also, law school. Kudos, Gnomesque!)

This wasn't a bad year by any means, but if you were looking for nuance, ya should've asked for more than a single word!

So what do I want the word of 2011 to be? Maybe "redemption", in the context of me redeeming myself in my own eyes: make amends, make money, make friends, and make tracks. I want to see new places. I'm thinking about moving somewhere new, starting fresh. But you know what? One-word summaries work fine in the past tense: I have a year's worth of experiences, and I can pick out a common theme in my mind. I don't really want to put the future in the same box before I've even had a chance to see it. I want next year to be better than this year was, not because I think this year was bad, but because there's no point in treading water or backsliding.

I think these are supposed to be 750 words, but nuts to counting. I've said as much as I want to say.

-LOUD!

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