Oh what a year!

I will freely admit that I completely stole this idea from Joanna (of Happiness blog fame).  She claims she came across this on her facebook feed, but I'm not going to discount the idea that she came up with this entirely on her own.  For the most part, it's a question/answer series about the past year (yea yea, I know... still 8 more days).  While I was reading the questions and Joanna's answers, I realized I was occasionally pausing and thinking about how I would answer a particular question.

After about 10 of the 40 questions making me pause and think, I figured it would be a good idea to go ahead and write up my own 'year in review'.

First, let me set the stage.  In December of 2012 I was at a very low point. I know I shared some of this on my other blog, but I was feeling lower than I let on even then.  I believe at one point while chatting with greatgooglymoogy I contemplated suicide.  Not that talking to googs was making me want to off myself, but I couldn't come up with anything positive to say.  I had graduated nursing school over a year ago, and had my licesne for about six months, but was still finding very little traction on getting a job.

Instead of killing myself I started to hide away the negative feelings.  I tried to be a more positive person on the outside.... and that was a really hard mask to wear.  But I was afraid that if I would blurt something out lie that to googs, then I might just lose control and say the same thing to someone in real life.  Someone that could do something about it.  I figured though that if my internal self was that close to pulling the metaphorical trigger, then all I would need is another thing to weigh me down.  Like going to counseling for being that close in the first place.


Things just about held steady for the first few months of the year.  I kept plugging away at filling out applications and finding new avenues to use my license.  At one point I contacted my former nursing instructor and had her give my resume and coverletter and once over.  She said it was fine and couldn't figure out what was wrong.  We kept in touch and at one point she mentioned looking for either federal or state employment.  I had already applied to a dozen or so Veteran's Administration jobs (just about the only federal nursing positions available to someone with no experience), but I had completely blanked on the State job.

After setting up an account on the state job site, I applied to all the available nursing jobs.  Correctional nursing jobs.  I got my first interview in March and felt really good about it, but failed to land the job.  That was a dark day.  A couple months after that I interviewed for more or less the same position.  After the interview one of the nursing supervisors asked if I had ever put my resume up on Manpower or CareOne... two temp agencies that they would often hire people through.

I did send my resume into Manpower and a month later was offered a job at the same prison I had interviewed at for the full state job.  That more or less catches you up to where I privatized this blog and started writing here.  I eventually interviewed again for the full state job and in November of this year I got hired on as a State Employee.  YAY!

So... now that the table is set, with one half of this year being a painful time of suffering and despair and the other half being a celebratory time of joy, I offer you my (Joanna's) list of questions and answers.  By the way, I'm going to try to write these out quickly so that I don't put to much thought into them and give more guttural visceral answers:


1.What did you do in 2013 that you'd never done before?
Get paid for working as a nurse.
Step into a prison.
See a dead body that wasn't in a funeral home or a family member.
Make a plan for committing suicide and write half of a suicide letter.

2.Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
I don't make New Year's resolutions, so there were none to keep
I will make a vague declaration to get myself more healthy, but I still wouldn't consider it a resolution.

3.Did anyone you know give birth?
No.

4.Did anyone you know die?
I didn't really 'know' the guy in prison that died, so no.

5.What countries did you visit?
I didn't even leave my own state.

6.What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013?
A romantic relationship.

7.What date from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
July 2.  The day I got my first nursing job.

8.What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting hired as a nurse.
Helping get my brother's truck on the road.
Staring the process of helping my mother out financially as opposed to being a financial burden on her.

9.What was your biggest failure?
Almost giving up.
Not telling anybody that I almost gave up.

10.Were you seriously ill during 2013?
I was depressed, but not physically ill during this year.

11.What was the best thing you bought?
The suspension parts for my brother's truck.
Fiona.
My shotgun

A quick aside on why the shotgun makes the list.  It's one of the first time's that I only marginally wanted to get something and didn't let financial concerns (just over $500) even slow me down in buying it.

12.Whose behaviour merited celebration?
Mine... in the latter part of the year.

13.Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?
Mine... in the earlier part of the year.

14.Where did most of your money go?
The hunting trip... I probably blew about $1000 on that.
Student loans... but I've never been so happy to pay over $600 a month!

15.What did you get excited about?
Getting a job... still excited about that!
Realizing that I could be a financial help to others.
BEING a financial help to others.

16.What songs will always remind you of 2013?
Heal by Tom Odell
The Forgotten by Green Day
Wake Me Up by Avicii

17.Compared to this time last year, are you:
Sadder/Happier? Happier.  Like night and day.
Thinner/Fatter? Fatter.  Depression DOES take the weight off.
Richer/Poorer? Richer.  Like night and day.

 18. What do you wish you'd done more of?
Used all that spare time I had in the beginning of the year to be a better friend/brother/son.

19.What do you wish you'd done less of?
Focus on my own humiliating at not getting a job, and believing that other's saw me the same way.

20.How will you be spending Christmas?
In prison (that joke never gets old)

21.What is the one thing you would have gone back and done differently this year?
Not. A. Thing.

It would probably be easy and understandable for me to wish that I wouldn't have let myself get so down that I had contemplated and planned suicide.  But hitting that rock bottom (the only lower I could have gone would have been to attempt said suicide and not be successful), made me take a long, hard, painful look in the mirror and try to get help getting a job.  That eventually lead me to my former professor, and that eventually lead me to the job.  So no... I wouldn't even change that.  I hope to never do anything close to that again, but I can't deny that even that dark page helped me move forward.

22.Did you fall in love in 2013?
<sigh>  No.

23.Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
No.

24.What was your favourite TV programme?
I could say Elementary, Person of Interest, or even Walking Dead, but I loved each of those before 2013.  So to stay with the 'this year' theme, I'd have to say This Old House (and the accompanying Ask This Old House).  I watched that show years before, but I really REALLY love watching them now for some reason.

25.What was your greatest musical discovery?
Electro Swing.  I'll  have a post about this some time later.

26.What was the best book you read?
A three-way tie between Stephen King's Joyland, Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, and Jim Butcher's Cold Days

27.Are you happy with your lot?
Oh God YES!

28.What did you want and get?
A nursing job.

29.What did you want and NOT get?
A nursing job in a hospital.

30.What was your favourite film of this year?
Re-watching both 'Go' and 'Swing Kids'

31.What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
Ate cake and be depressed.  I turned 39.

32.What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
Getting hired into this job in January instead of June.

33.How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013?
The same concept as I've had for most of my life.  Jeans and a patterned button  up shirt. Oh... and my new coat with a scarf.  2014 will be all about getting multiple scarfs!

34.What kept you sane?
My online friends (If you are here reading this... this means you!)

35.Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Fancy?  As in want to have carnal knowledge of?  Anne Hathaway.
Fancy as in admire?  President Barrack Obama.

36.What political issue stirred you the most?
The debate about guns and gun control.

37.Who did you miss?
Jennifer

38.Who were the best new people you met/got to know?
The two wonderful, knowledgeable, creative nurses that I work with day in and day out.

39.Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013:
Good things come.  It doesn't matter if you are waiting, crying, railing, howling, dying, working, struggling, or not even aware that something good may come along.... Good Things Come.

40.Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
Take my mind and take my pain
Like an empty bottle takes the rain
And heal.

Take my past and take my sins
Like an empty sail takes the wind

And heal.

Take my heart and take my hand
Like an ocean takes the dirty sands
And heal.


So... that's my 2013.  I really wanted to include more 'good' things, but honestly 2013 will be the year I became whole again.  Getting the job was THAT important.  Not just to me.. but to who I am as a person.