Staking 2009 In the Heart

It's funny to me just how many people hated this year. I've mentioned before that I attended a non-Thanksgiving dinner this year themed "Thanks for Nothing" by some friends who've all had bad years. But I also saw that one of my fake Facebook game-friends had posted pictures from their "Unthanksgiving" get-together, as well. And I happened to hear Glenn Beck on the radio a while back, talking about what an awful year it has been. And today, I saw some news article or other where they were talking about people who will not be sorry to see 2009 in their rear-view mirrors and hope that 2010 starts on a more hopeful note than 2009 ('more hopeful note?'--remember that when 2009 started we were less than a month away from the coronation of B.O. the First, signalling the start of a new era when the Earth would cool and the oceans would stop rising, we would no longer have to worry about mortgages or jobs or health care, everyone in the world would be America's friend, bird and beast and flower would be one with man and death but a dream--how much more hopeful could could people be?).

Then again, my wife had a wonderful year (and I hate to think how much her thriving may be a result of my leaving).

As for me: I started the year employed but desperately unhappy in my job. I was launching a new webcomic and hopeful about that, but not so much about anything else. I spent much of the year broke and unemployed, and end it underemployed, in debt and barely hanging on financially.

But the year ends with hopeful signs. Barring unforeseen disaster, I should be starting a new job in late January with the potential to be earning more in a year than I was a year ago, which can help me resolve my debt problems. I'm on the verge of finishing and submitting a new novel. Several folks who were more in the line of acquaintances last year are friends now. 2010 looks like it could be a much better year than 2009, and not just in the "How could it be any worse?" sense.

So whether you had a good year or a bad one, here's hoping that we all*, each of us, will see that better future we hope for come to pass.

(ETA: Except for those rat bastards who cheated me--they can suffer and die for all I care)