Even though the ’10s were a great decade for me in a lot of respects, this current trend of taking stock of what you accomplished and sharing it with social media in a positive and uplifting way is bumming me the shit out. Could I write about how I gave up at a career-low only to bounce back and have a huge self-publishing hit and a blog series blah blah blah? Sure, but in the midst of a mental health crisis, it just feels…disingenuous. It reduces my life over the past ten years to just the good things and to be frank, sometimes the good things don’t outshine the bad. So, here are the important stats to take away, I guess. A lot of them are animal-related. I just like animals.
Cars paid off: 1
Student loans paid off: 2
Bones broken: 2
Doctor Who Doctors who sent me birthday wishes: 1
Times I went to Georgia: 3
Doctor Who Doctors I met super briefly via Skype: 1
Literary feuds: 5
Black bears petted: 1
Years I was allowed to drive: 6
Vacations that involved natural disasters: 1
Times I saw Billy Joel in concert: 3
Real Christmas trees: 0
Good Presidents: 1
Lawsuits: 1
Fandom awards for fanfic written specifically about Anthony Head as Uther Pendragon in Merlin: 7
Homes foreclosed on: 1
Name changes: 1
Great Horned Owls I spotted in the wild: 3
Funerals I ruined: 0
Funerals someone else ruined: 1
Surprised our kids with a trip to Disney World: 1
Times I saw a Bald Eagle running on the ground: 1
How stupid it looked, on a scale of 1-10: 10
How disillusioned I was, on a scale of 1-10: 8
Community theater productions: 8
Broadway World Regional Awards nominated ensembles performed in: 1
Seizures: so many.
Dogs that died: 2
Rats that died: 5
Hamster that died: 1
Corporations formed: 1
Father/daughter relationships tentatively repaired: 1
Visits to a mystical vortex: 3
Deer I shot at: 5
Deer I shot: 0
Deer that almost killed me: 1
Toxic friendships ended: 4
TV show finales that made me furious: 1
Phones dropped in toilets: 3*
Crafts I learned to do: 6
Times I attended mass: 17**
Times I worried about demon possession: constantly
Therapists: 3
Low brass instruments salvaged from someone else’s trash: 1***
Now, it’s November. There’s no reason to assume I won’t see another owl or drop my phone in the toilet within the next few weeks. If anything does happen that’s on this list, I’ll come back and update the total. But some of these would be downright weird as repeats.
Let everybody know some of your important stats for the decade. They don’t have to be inspirational or teach some positive lessons or anything. That shit is getting boring as hell. Let us know how many times you went to the dentist or watched Frozen. Tell us how many miles you put on your car or how many of your relatives died. Just throw out the highlight reel for the decade. And avoid Instagram until January.
*some phones were dropped in toilets multiple times
**best estimate
***it was a baritone