2012: Embrace The Suck

Image from cartoonstock.com

2012. What a year. To steal a line from Queen Elizabeth, 2012 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure: in many ways it was an “annus horribilis.” The Year Of The Suck, Mostly. Too goddamn many “life lessons” tossed rapidly into my path this year, thankyouverymuch.

It would be cute to channel Pollyanna The Glad Girl and believe that “there’s nowhere to go but up.” Cute, but not entirely truthful. There are other places to go besides “up”: it’s possible for things to stay stuck on suck. To quote my friend Melissa, every silver lining has a cloud.

I keep waiting for this year’s sucktacular events and life lessons to make sense, to understand how they all fit into The Great Scheme Of Things™, but they’re not going to un-suck just because I wish them to. Still, some positive things happened. I rocked the 902, and set a goal to move to Cape Breton by the end of 2016. President Obama won re-election. I watched my nephew namesake graduate high school with honors in San Antonio (he’s now at Baylor). I made friends with some great new people, and renewed friendships with some others. I have a house and a job, and will soon have a car again. I get to spend a lot of time doing the thing I love the most. I have a family who loves one another, and a circle of friends who have each others’ backs. And to quote The Boss, I strolled all alone through a fallout zone and came out with my soul untouched.

Back in May, writer/editor A.J. Jacobs wrote an article in Real Simple magazine wherein he wrote a few lines that turned my head around:

“It’s a powerful lesson: Accept failure. Enjoy it, even. Embrace the suck, for the suck is part of the process.”

Don’t require things not to suck. Accept the suck. Take pride in surviving the suck. Might as well, you know, because the suck is going to suck regardless. I can comfort myself with the belief that this year’s suck is all part of the process, some process, and that it all will prove worthwhile someday. That’s one very slender reed there, but it beats kicking holes in the sheet rock. And it seems to be another of those life lessons.

Image from The New Yorker

Till then, here’s Eytan Mirsky to greet the new year. Here’s hopes that 2013 will not be the suck for you, me, or any of us.  If it does, may we embrace the suck and take pride in surviving the suck. And buckle your seat belts tonight, goddamnit. Accidents suck.

And now we’ve reached December
And it’s been so disappointing
That we’re glad this sorry year’s about to end
But in just a little while
We’ll be back in January
And you know we’re gonna start it all again
And we’ll say:

This year’s gonna be our year
Don’t you know it’s gonna be our year, now
Much better than last year
And the year before
This year’s gonna be our year
Don’t you know it’s gonna be our year, now
Much better than last year
Which wasn’t good at all