2013

Wasn’t the world supposed to have ended by about now?

Seriously Mayans, you suck at keeping things in check. At least when it comes to predicting global apocalypses and managing the Spanish influenza.

For full effect, download “This Will Be Our Year” by The Zombies, and play at maximum volume throughout the duration of this post.

So…we’re to the end of another one? Already? You’re joking, right? This is ludicrous I know, but let’s face the facts people. We are getting old. We are turning gray. We are becoming a generation of old farts that will get caught listening to what is now classified as “oldies” when in our minds it’s just the smash hit from Weezer in 1994. Time really is just slipping into the future, as the Steve Miller band so eloquently put, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Another year has come and gone, and yes, there may be some sort of heartwarming message massaged throughout this post, but hear me out. I’m just sitting here on a lazy Tuesday afternoon trying to recount a year of highs and a year of lows. A year of growth, and a year of setbacks. I came, I saw, and I conquered. That’s the phrase people use when trying to describe a triumph isn’t it?

2013 was a year flexing my muscles like an overinflated beach bum in a speedo, and a year laying in the fetal position weeping like a damaged child on depressants. It was a year of broken hearts and broken dreams, countered with euphoric smiles and giant bear hugs. It was a year of races, and a year of French toast. A year of birdies and bogies, mortgage payments and violations. A year stoked with long hikes, late nights, emergency rooms, and scars I will never tell my family about.  

It was a year spent on the road, and a year spent in my first home. A year where I lived, breathed, and choked giving out the same 15-second response to students all over the Western United States. 2013 was spent in classrooms, wetsuits, gyms, hotels, frontseats, backseats, swimming pools, movie theaters, cheap restaurants, airplanes, tents, warehouses, empty living rooms and Sin City. A year spent on basketball courts, golf courses, boring treadmills and blind dates with serial killers.  

This was a year spent alone. And a year surrounded with characters you can’t imagine even if you’re intoxicated. Characters I have ran with, dined with, golfed with, biked with, boarded with, covered for, lied to (for good reason), learned from, edited with, suited up, pickled with, sang to, cheered for, passed by, cried over, cried, with, and cried for (different emotions involved in all three of those). Characters I have lost, found, cursed, smelled, swiped, bumped, set, spiked, missed, blogged, mourned, taught, shot, slapped and groped accidentally in public (more on that later).

2013 was life lessons over cheap Mexican food, and church basketball games with $100 friends. It was fancy steak dinners alone in 5-star Hotels in the Pacific Northwest, and a face full of hot coolant from broken radiators. 2013 holds the record for the four longest road trips I have ever endured, and the humbling moment where my manly wall crumbled and I gave into Pinterest. It was a year signing my life away for the next 30 years, and a year where I was handed the most beautiful niece wrapped up in a blanket just after 2 am.

2013 was the year where I discovered I was made out of Iron.

Well, at least half of me is anyway…

2013 was the best year I have had thus far in my life, and I don’t mean that in an embellished sense by any means. This truly was one of the best years I have ever had the chance to witness, endure, and celebrate. It was a year that changed who I am as a person.

And I hope to everything holy it did the same thing for you.