I don’t know about you guys, but 2014 was a mixed bag for me. I guess all years are, really, but this year… I simply cannot recall another when I have so often found myself at a loss for words, so often felt utterly exhausted by current events. Not outraged — although there seemed to be plenty of that to go around — but just… tired. Worn down and fed up with the never-slackening torrent of disheartening awfulness… everything from the right’s inexhaustible fear and loathing of President Obama to a steady undertow of hysteria about the Ebola outbreak (which suspiciously dissipated immediately after election day…), the rise of ISIS (or ISIL, or whatever the hell they’re calling themselves this week), Iraq and Syria and Afghanistan and Israel, Vladimir Putin, and god knows what else. Then there was Gamergate, Ferguson, and the torture report. Missing airliners. Stephen Collins and Bill Cosby. Robin Williams… Jesus, Robin Williams, man.

Closer to home, I’ve watched helplessly as friends have lost loved ones this year, and confronted their own life-altering chronic illnesses. I myself lost a couple of beloved pets — first, my little buddy Hannibal-cat to the heavy traffic in front of my house, and then my mom’s horse Sonny, who had been a fixture of the Bennion Compound since I was a teenager — and I’ve seen my father deteriorate into a little old man, complete with stooped shoulders and shuffling walk, seemingly overnight due to a bad back.

In the past twelve months, I’ve become aware of — and increasingly resigned to — the reality that certain things I used to take for granted, things I’ve always said I’d get around to “someday,” are no longer options for me. I can feel myself letting go of dreams I’ve always had, and that scares the shit out of me. And I’ve felt increasingly alienated from the pop culture that has always been central to my identity, but no longer seems to speak to me, by and large. When I overhear people talking about the popular and acclaimed movies and TV shows these days, I feel… left behind. Obsolete. And I’ve found myself thinking often of a line from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls, one of the moments of that flawed movie that rang true for me, when Indy is looking at a photo of Henry Sr. and his colleague remarks, “We seem to have reached the age where life stops giving us things and starts taking them away.” I’m not quite to that point yet… but I can see it in the headlights up ahead.

And yet, for all that, I’ve also felt surprisingly contented during 2014. I don’t think I’ve ever been as comfortable with loving the things I love as I have over the past 18 months, during which I’ve attended four separate media conventions — two iterations of Salt Lake Comic Con, the spin-off Salt Lake Comic Con Fan eXperience (FanX), and FantasyCon — and met a lot of the personalities who populated my imagination during my geeky youth. I marked my unprecedented ninth year in my job as a proofreader at a major ad agency, I (mostly) stopped arguing politics with people whose minds I know I will never change, and I’ve maintained (more or less) my health and weight loss for the second year running (it’ll be three years in March). I’ve been confident enough in myself to take genuine pleasure in the accomplishments of my friends — notably our colleague Kelly Sedinger becoming a published author, and my lovely Anne finally extricating herself from a soul-crushing job and landing in one that promises to open up a whole new world for her… seriously, no hyperbole!  And there have even been some positive things in the news, too. I was absolutely captivated by the Philae probe’s adventures on Comet 67P, and then just in the last couple of weeks, the unexpected thawing of relations with Cuba, something I’ve favored for years. And there was the pure joy of Guardians of the Galaxy, the most unambiguously good time I’ve had at the movies — and the first geeky thing I’ve found myself obsessing over to any degree — in several years.

So as I said, a mixed bag. Looking ahead to 2015, I see more of the same, basically. I hope to do better with this blog, and to get on top of some long-simmering projects. There’s a new Avengers movie to look forward to, and Episode VII of course. And Anne and I are finally making serious plans to travel to Scotland, something we’ve been dreaming about for over a decade, so there’s that, at least…