The Absurd Word Nerd's 2018 Retrospective

I keep paralyzing myself with thoughts of what I could write on here. I have struggled to write this, to write anything, for a long time now. I am probably overthinking it, but that's what I do with most things, so it's to be expected.
I don't know if I should be bitter or happy or angry or upset. When it comes to summarizing the year, it seems as though I should feel something. Unfortunately, life isn't that simple.

One of the benefits of narrative is that every story can have a point. There is, in fact, a grand designer and creator behind everything, and you can see the meaning of their world hidden beneath the surface. But, life doesn't have meaning or purpose, unless we give it some kind of meaning and purpose. I covered this in my post The Meaning of Life, an Analysis - life has no inherent meaning, but it can inherit meaning.
But, that's life in the broad-strokes, one lifetime. What about smaller portions of a lifetime, a literal slice of life? Is there meaning in a year of one's life? What about a month? A week? A day? An hour?
How small do we have to dissect our lives before we reach a moment that is truly meaningless?
Can we ever reach such an indivisible moment, or is every moment pregnant with the potential that a life can have?

I am not being poetic, I don't actually know the answer to these questions. It probably depends on the person, and the moment. However, in this moment, where I am summarizing this year from my perspective, this year doesn't seem to have any meaning. I'm not saying there weren't highs and lows - on the contrary, this year saw me finding work, and balancing my mental health as well as losing my last and dearest grandparent, Iris Jarrett, my maternal grandmother.
I never mentioned it on here because I didn't want to turn my grandmother's death into a blog post. Not only did I not feel like I could represent what she meant to me in a single post, but I was also grieving quite a lot - a lot more than I expected to.

But, this also saw some greater independence on my part. My parents had bought a caravan, and had begun traveling with it. This meant more time to myself, time which I often used for relaxation, but occasionally used for writing.
Of course, I now find myself looking at the first post of this year, Closing the Book on 2017. As is tradition here, I had three pseudo-resolutions for this year:

1. I wanted to complete my GameBlog
2. I wanted to conclude Duke Forever
3. I wanted more of my writing Published

Since two of those were related to this blog, it's pretty obvious how far they've come, but allow me to reassure you, I haven't had any more of my writing published either. That's right, I'm zero for three.
I could spend time explaining why, but honestly, I doubt you care. I barely care, and I'm the one ashamed that I've once again failed to fulfill my own yearly wishes.
This hasn't happened to me since 2014's failed fulfillment followup.

This being the case, I have no option really but to do what I did then, and repeat my resolutions. My promises aren't broken if I just postpone them.
Y'know what, looking back on this year, I've decided what it was to me and this blog:
2018 - The Year the Writing didn't Flow.

I started the year wanting to write my Duke stuff, and didn't. I tried to work on my GameBlog, and didn't. I finally came back swinging with my Halloween Countdown, but due to a mistake at the eleventh hour, I had to scrape something new together, barely posted it all on time, and felt exhausted afterwards, unable to write anything since.

Part of that is because it's summer, and I can't write in summer - too hot - I'm sitting in my father's study with the air conditioner blasting, just so I can write this. But, for the most part it's because I went from a blogging walking pace to a literary sprint with little-to-no preparation. It left me feeling well and truly drained, and despite having several plans for stuff I wanted to write in the immediate aftermath, I was left stumbling for quite a while afterwards.
This blog post is literally the first thing I've managed to write in two-and-a-half months.

Anyway, another problem that stories have over life in general is that stories tend to have a final page and a definitive conclusion, but I don't know the conclusion for this year.
Yes, today is the last day of the year, but so what? I don't know. Perhaps that's the feeling I'll have the enter into the coming year with. A general malaise, due to not feeling like I've accomplished anything this year. I hope your 2018 was better than mine, and let's all vow to try better next year.

Uh . . . bye for now, I guess. See you next year.