Alright 2010...I'm looking at the last ninety minutes of your life-disrupting nonsense, safe in the knowledge that when I wake tomorrow you'll have been put to rest and finally behind me.
You really threw me for a loop there, 2010. You started innocent and promising, as I suppose most years start; moving into a beautiful new loft with the woman I was ready to spend the rest of my earthly time with, the rumblings of new music with new people, getting paid to play guitar (!), teaching more, et cetera. But you quickly did an about face and started slapping me around...and not even a month into you! I tried to ignore it, but you knew me too well, 2010. After three months of watching your screenplay of lies unfold in front of me, you added insult to injury, sending me a rotting bouquet of roses with a severed hand as it's centerpiece. But still I tried. Oh, how I tried! You took away my home and then invited me back, only to quickly displace me once and for all. I was thrown into a bleak pool of uncertainty, but things started to look up, however slightly...only not for long (you always have a better view of the sky when you're lying in the weeds). You teased me with possibilities, but always turned your back on me. Blindsided, hopeful, and ultimately too trusting, you stole from me, colluding with persons known and unknown. You allowed Fortuna to spin her wheel and leave me stranded on the side of the road, more than once. Everytime I started to gain ground, all I ended up doing was sliding back down the hill, Sisyphus-style. You dangled shiny prizes in front of my face, only to snatch them away at the last second. It was enough to drive a man to drink; or worse. Quite a few times I felt like giving up, although I never did. Giving up would have meant that you bested me. And regardless of how unsettling things got, deep down inside, I felt I would learn from all of this ultimately-avoidable chaos and someday be better for it, in spite of your godforsaken fuckery.
So now I look at you in your final hours, frail and dying, just about to blink out of existence, and I find myself smiling. Smiling, because I have the opportunity to take all of the horrible fucking "lessons" I've learned (or been forcefully taught, depending on your view) and make your newborn child, 2011, my bitch.
I just took back the controls, and I'm pulling up...hard. If your kid wants 'em, they'll have to be pried from my cold, dead hands.
In summary, fuck you 2010.
