VIII Of Swords: New Year, Old Blog

Every New Year makes me feel like I've not done something that I should have. It could be writing that long-overdue foray into horror that I've always wanted to do (but Vampires are so overdone nowadays). It could be taking that risk in getting one of my short stories published. Anything, really, can qualify as "that annoying little something I should have done in that year that just went by." For the transition period between 2007 and 2008, I find that it isn't so much something I should have done, and more along the lines of something I should have found.

My cousin's recent wedding (quite a lovely bride he's managed to catch, by the way; I'll have pictures of the lovely couple up at some point) and this recent post by a friend got me thinking about It.

Love.

Should I have found it by now? I've been in love before, to be sure, but should I have found it in a more...permanent sense by now? Yes, yes, I know I'm only 23 (damn that number makes me feel old), but already there are hushed, half-meant jokes about me being next in line to have a wedding. The idea I dismiss in public, especially when I cheerfully remind my family members that I don't have a girlfriend (the ones I've had they know nothing about and are likely to never know about) and that, while one or two people I know have caught my eye, I'm in no hurry to do anything about that. In my own mind, however, I can't help but think I should, at the very least, be looking for love.

Of course, there's a part of me that's just a tad bit technocratic. A part of me that considers this whole situation a problem to be solved, but I can't work on the solution until I understand the problem. Which is what keeps me from getting anywhere. I simply feel like I should understand what cannot be understood (love) before I can get to the long, arduous, and seemingly rather frustrating task of finding it. Just the idea sends chills up and down my spine when I consider the ramifications this might have on my schedule and my personal projects (Darkness & Stars is going strong, by the way).

Unless the old stereotype kicks in and love hits me square in the face (with enough force for me to eventually recognize it for what it is), I doubt I'm going to make any progress on the romantic front any time soon. Just as well, I guess. At the moment, I'm actually rather content to just sit back and let my thoughts mull over on other matters, such as the fiction I create.

Is it odd, I wonder, to be thinking like this on the New Year? Or, for that matter, writing a blog that is, by Internet terms, a rather ancient one? I suppose not, considering the other topics I've written about in the past.

Interestingly, part of me doesn't want to find a girl who has the same interests I do. A similar personality would be nice, especially if tacked along with an innate understanding that my interests are not the sort of things I will compromise in the name of love. It irks me that I can't come up with anything more specific than that, other than an ability to cook well. I flounder whenever someone asks me what I look for in a girl, simply because I haven't really bothered to pin down the qualities that attract me. I suppose I could examine the girls I used to love (along with a few that I almost, but not quite, loved) but I did that once before. Yeah, didn't exactly get any real results out of that.

I wonder if, should I ever find the right girl, the whole thing will just hit me like a ton of bricks? Or is one of the voices in my head right in saying that if you love someone, there should be no defining qualities or traits that catch your emotions? Yes, I just made sense. Read it over if it didn't, because you clearly missed something.

Great, now I feel moderately alarmed that I welcome the New Year in my blog with a rather...melancholic thought.

And another quiz result:

What Vampire: the Requiem Vampire clan are you?

Regal, commanding and aristocratic, the Ventrue are the harsh lords of the Danse Macabre. The Ventrue most often come from the closest the modern world comes to feudal nobility: the ranks of professionals, the cream of high society, the scions of old money or political dynasties. As new professions and new forms of power arise, the Ventrue bring them into the clan. Through whatever means necessary, the Ventrue rise to the top of the undead heap.
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