So, here we are in 2005, with 2004 receding in the rear-view mirror. Woo.

I’m having a hard time getting any traction here for the new year. I think you can’t help but evaluate yourself and your position in life at the start of a new year, and my evaluation has me in a bit of a funk. 2004 wasn’t exactly my year and it’s hard now to get up for 2005.

I remember this time last year, thinking that “this is going to be my year” and feeling very optimistic about it. Now, not so much. 2004 was just another year, really no better or worse than the last. I just kept my head down and went through it and it sort of slid by. No low points, really, but also no real high points. It was just another year, certainly not the “My year” I held out hope for. And thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure I had the same thought on 1/1/03 … and 1/1/02 … and maybe even 1/1/01. I think we want to be hopeful as we start a new year and anticipate great things — but I think more dreams are dreamt than are lived.

I’m 43 now, I’m at the age where I should be “what I want to be when I grow up” — and I’m not. Not even close. I’ve had the Hollywood agent and it got me nowhere. I have multiple industry contacts and they’re getting me nowhere. I’m over the hill as a sitcom writer and can’t make any headway as a movie writer. I’m grown up and I’m not living my dream. Instead, I’m currently unemployed and can’t even find a new gig as a software trainer — which was never my dream or my passion in the first place, just the most lucrative paycheck I can swing.

So I’m kind of down now. I’m not terribly excited or hopeful for 2005. It’ll pass, I’m sure, I’ll climb out of it and keep my head down and get through the year again, but I just can’t get into it this time. I hope this year will be a good one but I suspect it’ll just be 365 days of more of the same.

I’m tired of more of the same. I’d like to have a great year for a change, a life-changing year, one that I’ll look back on and say “that’s where things turned around for me.”

Universe, Fate, whatever you call yourself, I’m looking at you. It’s time to step up. I think I’m due, motherfucker.