New Year 2014: My year for asking questions

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The New Year is here — like a blind date showing up to your door, you don’t know if you are going to like them or not, you don’t know if you are going to get along with them.  You don’t know if they have “the STD”.

Another year means another chance, a chance for more happiness, more heartache, another chance to seek answers, another chance to get acquainted with dreams. Another year means a new opportunity to face fears and overcome the challenges that lie ahead.

It seems like everywhere you look, people claim they have found the answers. Preachers waving a book and speaking in tongues or someone claiming they have the new breakthrough formula for weight loss or something.

I just want to find the right questions. I want to be intrigued, bewildered, and I want to be loved and accepted. I want to wander and explore. I want to hear people’s different views and opinions to my questions (as long as they are opinions I want to hear.)

2013 has been the most exciting year and at the same time, it has been the most wretched. I got to experience what life is about, the ups along with the downs, I got to experience “living.”  I am grateful for every episode so far.  In 2013, I got to fulfill a life-long dream by moving to Los Angeles, and I got to experience the most passionate love of my life.

I got my first acting part in a feature movie and a national TV show. I seriously contemplated committing suicide twice and selfishly felt sorry for myself instead of realizing how lucky I really am just to exist.

In 2013 I got to see the Oregon coast and Key West, Florida for the first time.  I got to hear a woman tell me she doesn’t love me anymore. I got to write for the Los Angeles Post-Examiner. I can’t wait to see what 2014 has to offer.

The Milky Way, speeding along at 1.34 million MPH. (Photo via Wikipedia)
The Milky Way, speeding along at 1.34 million MPH.
(Photo via Wikipedia)

To me, part of the excitement over the past year was not knowing how it would turn out, from one minute to the next. I think if I am still here a year from now, writing a similar article, I will consider it a successful year!

Truth be told, sometimes — no, many times in this past year — I have curled up on my air mattress in my tiny studio apartment, paralyzed with fear. I am scared that people will find out I have been a fraud. I am scared that I will not utilize my talent. I am scared that I will push away the few people who still love me. Sometimes I get so high, I am scared to go outside my apartment. I am scared that I will f-things up again. I am scared that I won’t take a chance because I am too afraid of f’ing things up again.

On the bright side, I find myself ambitious in seeking enlightenment, yet I fall short so many times. I read books by Don Miguel Ruiz, I even watch Tony Robbins’ videos, and still I find myself setting up self-made road blocks. I want to be genuine to the ones I love and to myself and not just full of s#!&.

January 1st is everyone’s chance to start over. Maybe this year will be the one I have been waiting for at the crossroads by the old Johnson house. Maybe I will win the lottery.

I will be ending 2013 with a comedy show New Year’s Eve in Texas.  Standup comedy has been really good to me and many times I seek refuge on stage, but hey that’s better than seeking refuge in a bottle of bourbon. Besides when I heavily medicate myself, my material quickly changes from dysfunctional relationships to over throwing the government and getting rid of the mainstream media and embedded journalism.

In closing, I wish each of you happiness or whatever else you are seeking for this new year and all your new years to come. I welcome any comments, good or bad. What are your goals, what’s on your to-do list for 2014? If you could find yourself in a certain place more often in 2014, where would that place be? I will leave you with a question that I have always pondered. Our galaxy travels through space at 1.34 million miles per hour; do you ever wonder where we are going in such a hurry?

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