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the year 2010 in review
Jan. 3rd, 2011 09:53 pmit was a strange year. I have neither “yay” or “nay” to sum it up, but I am generally glad it is over – there is always hope that the new year would be better.
From the objective point of view, this year had positive changes for us – P got a new gob, in New York and we all moved after him, and really, how bad can be a year when we lived in New York? Our lives filled with interesting things and troubles. P's new job is quite good and he met a lot of his high school classmates from Kiev here in New York (mind you, when I say classmates, it's not five out of a hundred, it's eight out of thirty kids that graduated one Ukrainian school twenty years ago. It's incredible.)
On subjective level this year was very complicated. The excitement of the new life besides, we did suffered the total failure of our old Canadian life. We didn't really want to leave Canada, we had a lot of plans and dreams and hopes, but they all didn't work out – at the time. We left the comfort of familiarity and old connections in favour of something new and probably good, but very different. We also again found ourselves in a rather shaky position status-wise. We came to Canada the same way – P on work permit, I as visitor. But it was ten years ago and it felt more like an adventure that we could stop any time and go back. Now – go back where? I feel the shakiness of my position very strongly now. Before that I could see myself just buying one way ticket to Moscow. Now... with D, I seem to have to stay put, no matter what. And I cannot work.
I seem to find myself firmly in stay-at home-land. Which is not a position I ever wanted or can wholeheartedly enjoy. I love spending my time with D. I love not having to get out of house at 7 am. I love not having to do stuff I hate doing and see people I'd rather not see. But... I do miss seeing people and doing stuff – there were always aspect I loved in my job, I enjoyed the puzzle-solving part of legal work, I enjoyed a job well done and a case justly won. I enjoyed my salary most of all, to be honest. And that's what I miss most of all – my own earnings.
Now, I can't work and when, eventually I will be able to – I don't really know now what job to look for at this point. This year I continued to work on my own writing, and it went horribly. The re-writing part went too slow and not good enough. I knew what I should change, but not how. A year of work – and I don't have much to show. There is another problem that got really pronounced – I am very slow. Not, hopefully, a synonym of stupid, but slow in a mechanical sense: I am typing slowly (which is another reason why my job search sucks), and I am thinking slowly. This post, for example, I am writing for the second day. Well, not the whole day, obviously. I am afraid I even read slower than I used to. At least if you look and the books I read in the last year.
Socially, this year wasn't great for me. I left my friends and connections again, and started over in a new place, which is hard, especially when you do it again and again. I met some new people I liked, but the worst thing was that I felt too tired to seriously work on my social connections – away and close. I was bad at keeping in touch with old friends, I was bad at making new friends. I was bad at what I thought I got pretty good in the past few years. I just felt so tired, and knowing that I am going to change everything again in a year didn't help. I did try to venture in the new online communities, like goodreads, but either I didn't try hard enough, or I just got too silly in the past years, it didn't work out so far.
I wasted a lot of time and energy on things that I didn't need at the end, or on nothing at all.
After finishing the second draft of my novel, and realizing it sucks, I kind of didn't feel like writing anything – even though I had ideas. I am still working on it, and several short stories, but... whatever.
I read books and watched movies, and played World of Warcraft occasionally. I didn't do a lot of things I wanted to do.
My feeling of self-worth, confidence and identity crashed down. I also now know several people who got cancer. Young people. My generation people. Mortality got so much more real this year, and the fears for everyone dear to me.
So the balance of the year 2010? I don't know. I am just glad it's over. There are always hopes for the year 2011.
From the objective point of view, this year had positive changes for us – P got a new gob, in New York and we all moved after him, and really, how bad can be a year when we lived in New York? Our lives filled with interesting things and troubles. P's new job is quite good and he met a lot of his high school classmates from Kiev here in New York (mind you, when I say classmates, it's not five out of a hundred, it's eight out of thirty kids that graduated one Ukrainian school twenty years ago. It's incredible.)
On subjective level this year was very complicated. The excitement of the new life besides, we did suffered the total failure of our old Canadian life. We didn't really want to leave Canada, we had a lot of plans and dreams and hopes, but they all didn't work out – at the time. We left the comfort of familiarity and old connections in favour of something new and probably good, but very different. We also again found ourselves in a rather shaky position status-wise. We came to Canada the same way – P on work permit, I as visitor. But it was ten years ago and it felt more like an adventure that we could stop any time and go back. Now – go back where? I feel the shakiness of my position very strongly now. Before that I could see myself just buying one way ticket to Moscow. Now... with D, I seem to have to stay put, no matter what. And I cannot work.
I seem to find myself firmly in stay-at home-land. Which is not a position I ever wanted or can wholeheartedly enjoy. I love spending my time with D. I love not having to get out of house at 7 am. I love not having to do stuff I hate doing and see people I'd rather not see. But... I do miss seeing people and doing stuff – there were always aspect I loved in my job, I enjoyed the puzzle-solving part of legal work, I enjoyed a job well done and a case justly won. I enjoyed my salary most of all, to be honest. And that's what I miss most of all – my own earnings.
Now, I can't work and when, eventually I will be able to – I don't really know now what job to look for at this point. This year I continued to work on my own writing, and it went horribly. The re-writing part went too slow and not good enough. I knew what I should change, but not how. A year of work – and I don't have much to show. There is another problem that got really pronounced – I am very slow. Not, hopefully, a synonym of stupid, but slow in a mechanical sense: I am typing slowly (which is another reason why my job search sucks), and I am thinking slowly. This post, for example, I am writing for the second day. Well, not the whole day, obviously. I am afraid I even read slower than I used to. At least if you look and the books I read in the last year.
Socially, this year wasn't great for me. I left my friends and connections again, and started over in a new place, which is hard, especially when you do it again and again. I met some new people I liked, but the worst thing was that I felt too tired to seriously work on my social connections – away and close. I was bad at keeping in touch with old friends, I was bad at making new friends. I was bad at what I thought I got pretty good in the past few years. I just felt so tired, and knowing that I am going to change everything again in a year didn't help. I did try to venture in the new online communities, like goodreads, but either I didn't try hard enough, or I just got too silly in the past years, it didn't work out so far.
I wasted a lot of time and energy on things that I didn't need at the end, or on nothing at all.
After finishing the second draft of my novel, and realizing it sucks, I kind of didn't feel like writing anything – even though I had ideas. I am still working on it, and several short stories, but... whatever.
I read books and watched movies, and played World of Warcraft occasionally. I didn't do a lot of things I wanted to do.
My feeling of self-worth, confidence and identity crashed down. I also now know several people who got cancer. Young people. My generation people. Mortality got so much more real this year, and the fears for everyone dear to me.
So the balance of the year 2010? I don't know. I am just glad it's over. There are always hopes for the year 2011.
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