New Year's Resolutions

My Christmas was horrible. Since I promised myself I wouldn't focus on the negative here, I'll just say that I hope it means the worst Christmas of my life is now behind me.  It has left me with some unanswered questions regarding what I want to do in regards to my more extended family, but at this point I've got until March 1st at least to decide.  We shall see.

For now, the year is almost over and so I'm thinking about next year, and what I'd like to accomplish.  It's always around this time that I have to give myself a nudge to quit procrastinating about things.  This time around it's things around the house that are overdue: the tub in my second bathroom is stopped up and unusable, my gutters are in severe need of cleaning, and other such fun things.  I've got plans in place to start tackling these various things one by one which should help.

Another thing I've decided is I really need to stop being embarrassed about who I am.  I've gone to conventions the last two years as my major vacations, and every time at work I tell people I'm going to visit friends.  It's not a lie exactly, but when I come back from Washington DC and haven't visited a single monument or museum, it must seem a little odd to them anyway.  So I'm not going to pretend anymore.  This is starting with bringing in the Marvel Superheroes 2014 calendar that I got as a Christmas gift.  The Avengers was such a huge movie, it's really quite silly at this point to be embarrassed by it.  Yes, it's drawings rather than pictures of Robert Downey, Jr and Chris Helmsworth, but is it really that different?

Part of the problem is that a former friend who used to work here told me once that my coworkers were laughing at me for liking anime.  The silly thing was I'm pretty sure they decided that based on some webcomics I was reading where the artist just happened to be following that style. I do like anime, but I never watched or brought it here.  So there's a part of me that has that feeling they're going to be mocking me behind my back again if I've got Spider-man on my wall, but seeing as how they apparently already look down on me, what have I truly got to lose at this point?  I'd rather have superheroes up than some boring scenic calendar I got from my A/C company.

I also plan to extend this into not being embarrassed to tell people about my writing, podcasts, etc.  There's a part of me that feels like people will think I am weird for doing it.  I guess it's because when I post those things on Facebook, so many of the people I know and see day to day ignore them.  So I assume they think it's stupid.  But I really need to stop caring about that.  I don't mean rubbing it in peoples' faces all the time, but when someone asks me what I've been up to and the answer is editing a podcast, why not just come out and say it?

As long as I feel embarrassed about the things I like and the things I do, I can't feel confidence in myself.  In reality, most of the people who know the things I like do not shun me for them.  Even if friends don't read my blogs, they know I like movies enough that they will ask me my opinion on various films, or recommend some to me that they think I would enjoy.  Nearly everyone that has entered my home and seen my movies, action figures, and posters on display thinks they're awesome.  And most of the people who have reacted negatively are people I don't have much in common with and don't need the approval of anyway.  I am far too old to keep worrying about what other people think.

It's possible something else will strike me soon that I'll turn into a goal for the year, but for now it's going to take a bit of courage to follow through with what I've said above.