Goodbye, 2008....

...And good riddance.

2007 wasn't such a great year, beginning with my getting married and having to stay up during my wedding night with a gun in my lap due to my sister's boyfriend going violently nuts. My wife's health problems went downhill a couple of months later, and by the time of our wedding reception in July her mental state had followed. 2007 ended with her totalling my car in a parking lot accident (not her fault).

2008 began worse, with my wife going completely nuts and getting arrested for shoplifting on our first wedding anniversary. And it went downhill fast from there. Two more arrests followed over the next few months. One's still working its way through the court system.

The housing and credit crash wiped out the decent equity I had in my house and left me with an (barely) upside-down mortgage, ruining my financial plans plus my longer-term plan-ish of emigrating to New Zealand.

It wasn't all bad though. I finally worked up enough courage and strength to walk away from my marriage. The separation papers were signed just before Halloween. She moved out over Thanksgiving weekend, along with the iguanas and two of the cats. Moved back next door with her mother. Yeah, I married the girl next door. Yeah, it's way too close for my liking. But I'm stuck for now.

It was nearly five months between the "It's really this bad, and I have to get out of this before it kills me" realization and the actual moveout. Bit by bit I started doing stuff for myself, by myself, at first to help clear my head and think, but later because I genuinely wanted to. I rekindled dormant friendships, rebuilt crumbling social nets, and leaned heavily on them through the worst of the times.

Throughout all of this I poured myself into my only real outlet, photography. Not only did I get out far more times to far more places, but the general quality of the results shot way up. I started seriously thinking about how and where I wanted to take it, and took the first tentative steps.

And through those steps, many more doors have opened up. I've met amazing people and learned more about myself, what I want to do, and that I have the strength and ability to make my dreams happen.

So what's in store for 2009? For one, my marriage will be officially over by May 1st. But here are a few general plans:

• Grieve, and heal. Grow anew.
• Finish deep-cleaning and rearranging the house, and make it truly mine for the first time ever. Re-equip the raped kitchen.
• Cook at least one good, multi-course meal a week.
• Set up a permanent studio.
• Work with models in a more formal, staged setting, and learn the technical and more ephemeral aspects of so-called "fine art."
• Get out camping or deep into nature at least once a month. Preferably with like-minded friends.
• Take and/or post a totally awesome picture every day.
• Take much better care of myself.
• Build more friendships, and do stuff together.
• Lots of wild, meaningful sex.
• Get my nipples pierced.Whoops, did this yesterday. Ow.
• Get my financial situation in order -- It's not bad, excluding the mortgage mess. Sell the house and move on as soon as it is feasible.
• Get hopelessly drunk on life. And stay that way.

....And as the Navajo say, Go in Beauty.

With beauty before me, I walk
With beauty behind me, I walk
With beauty above me and about me, I walk
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty