Two Kay Six

This blog rarely takes a turn into the personal. This is one of those detours. Some thoughts on 2006:
Things have coalesced for me. The work done in my years outside NZ has been paying off in my understanding of my self and of my life-as-lived. I have a confidence in what I am doing here that was previously absent, and it feels like a step up from the positivity/improvisation that drove the last decade or so. Another phase of life with another mode of being, and while I am sure it will in time run its course and give way, for now it feels fresh and new and, crucially, empowering.
Aspect: Cal and I are together again. It feels deceptive, somehow, to say we ‘got back together’, because the associations of that phrase just don’t fit with my experience (but perhaps that is how it feels to every couple that parts and then reunites). In any case, the time we had apart was not a mistake, and coming back together was far from a foregone conclusion – but it has happened as a genuine development of the many and significant changes within both of us. I’ll go further, even: this feels to me like the relationship we were only approximating before. This feels good.
Counter: I have fallen back into old habits of relative isolation. I have an extensive network of friends who I love and respect, and mostly ignore the lot of them. Problem has been in particular focus this year as I’ve met a bunch of brand new people and have got back in contact with a few from, literally, a decade or more ago. I’m an introvert, believe it or not, and my social needs are largely met as a byproduct of activities I pursue (sports, roleplaying games). One part of how I’ve changed in the last few years: I’m no longer willing to shortchange my antisocial needs. Y’all just have to take my love on trust for the time being.
My intent in returning to New Zealand was, more or less, to get underway. And I have, after a fashion. I have been pushing my writing in a half-dozen directions, consolidating my experiences, and while I don’t have too much to show for it yet at the publication end, I’m confident that the groundwork this year will soon start paying off. And my craft has continued to sharpen and broaden, which is both wonderful and kinda embarrassing as I realise how crappy some of my old stuff really was.
If there’s something I regret about this year, it’s that I didn’t find the right way to cultivate key conversations without compromising the above. There are a lot of incredible people around me to engage with and I haven’t put enough energy into doing so, and I feel that failure. There are big ideas to be chased through the connected conversations of those around me, and with other things now falling into place it’s probably time to start. Perhaps that’s a resolution; every few years I make one, to take advantage of the symbolic momentum of change, so why not. Let’s call it done.
I have a stack of letters to the Edinburgh crew sitting on my desk, still unsent. Must do something about that.
This is the first year since 2001 in which I didn’t cross a national border.
This blog is something I’m enjoying, and I’ll keep writing it as long as I enjoy it. I particularly like the feedback I get, in comments (over 2000 since the blog began), in emails, in conversations at parties. I feel greatly privileged to have such an intelligent, funny and spirited crowd of readers to react to what I write, to keep me honest, crack wise real damn good, and show me to myself. Thanks for coming back again and again. Especially you lurkers. And thanks to all those on my blogroll; I know many people come here mostly to link through to everyone else, which means your awesomeness brings me readership, and that is teh r0XX0r and much appreciated.
Six hours left in the year. I’m gonna have some burgers. Yeah man.