2011 has been an interesting year for me. At the end of 2010 I had a lot of big plans like getting a job, getting my driver's license, going back to school, and possibly starting my own web show. Honestly I'm not sad that my plans didn't work out, it's given me time to do a lot of thinking and really I don't think I could have handled all of it with how 2011 went.
I started off the year with my first cat Ryuichi, who I'd had for seven years, leaving the house and not coming back. Two months later my new kitten Elazul died, we suspect of congestive heart failure or a unknown birth defect. A few months after that my brother, his wife, and their 2 year old son moved back in with us bringing stress my family did not need. Then I got into a huge fight with my parents on Mother's Day over a misunderstanding. By the end of the summer my sister-in-law and nephew moved in with her mother due to the fact that my parents and I could not stand her laziness and bad parenting. That started the several months of my brother resenting my parents, not paying any rent (we allowed this), and making plans to move to Arkansas to live with our biological father.
The lack of my sister-in-law did nothing to help the stress levels of the house. Nor did my aunt needing my mother to fly to California to help with her asshole boyfriend at the same time my nephew moved back in because the conditions of his grandmother's house being "unlivable" according to my brother. (It was a ploy to guilt my parents into letting my sister-in-law come back. They called his bluff and then everyone lost.) So I got to watch a two year old for a month, that was fun, some days. I then ended the year with a great vacation that was marred by my aunt's now ex-boyfriend getting drunk and fighting with my father, followed by a miserable Christmas spent shopping at Disneyland. On top of that my mother is going to move in with my aunt to take care of her. She will be living in California for three months, coming back to Washington for three months, and then going back to California again. Time will tell how well I handle such a major life change.
That was all the bad of the year but as everyone knows with the bad comes good. My parents and I went back to Disneyland for a "do over" and it was the best day of my year. Despite not getting a job or my driver's license I have returned to school, albeit online, and am doing pretty well. I joined a wrestling podcast, The DarkMatch, earlier in the year and doing that has been some of the most fun I've had in my life.
However the best thing that happened this year is all the new friends I've made. Through twitter, LiveJournal, the Spoony Experiment Forums, various live streams, and even Skype I have met a lot of great people who seem to enjoy talking to me. The very idea baffles me but I'm thankful. The other members of The DarkMatch have become some of the best friends I've had in a while. They're the reason why I have been able to make friends online when before I would never talk to people I didn't know. All of the members of the Secret Treehouse have been a blast to talk with on twitter and they have all inspired me to finally start writing again, something that means the world to me. The people I have met in live streams have made going to those streams ten times more fun than before and it's always nice to see a familiar name say hello to me. The people I have met on Skype have been great to talk and game with. Playing Action Castle and Betrayal at House On the Hill were great experiences and I can't wait to play more or even just talk with you guys.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that all of you, my online friends, have made the hardships I faced this year bearable. Without all of you I would have been miserable and sunk back into the depression (mild as it was) that I was suffering from the last few years. Thank you guys. I hope you all have a happy new year and that we can continue to have fun next year.
