I was honestly really pleasantly surprised by how many good things I could come up with for this year because it’s honestly been a year dominated by the bad.<\/p>\n
I’ve learned this year that the people who I grew up around never wanted me to be in their lives in the first place. My teachers, my coaches, my neighbors – they despised my background, my future, and who knows maybe even my presence.<\/p>\n
I’ve been so bi-coastal this year that I feel like I’m constantly missing out on the most important thing in both places. Critical events happening in real time while I’m video or dialed in. Parent-teacher conferences or fun school events when I’m crossing the country the other way. I never knew getting status with an airline would be such a taxing and exhausting process.<\/p>\n
I’ve been so lonely being in a new city, not being able to find the time to establish new friendships, and just constantly being stuck with my own thoughts. It took me a while to make friends in SF too, and I think I just forgot how hard it was. And I didn’t have kids in tow back then.<\/p>\n
I’ve been bad to my physical self. I’ve gained 20 pounds. I don’t exercise, do yoga, or play soccer. I eat badly because I’m constantly stress eating.<\/p>\n
But ultimately, I just haven’t been the father or the husband that I want to be. I haven’t been the person I want to be. My calendar has run my life instead of me feeling like I have a clear destination in mind and checking in with myself to make sure I’m getting there.<\/p>\n
In 2017, I lost sight of where I’m going, and who I want to be when I get there. It’s been a bad year. One of the ones we’ll put in the forget jar when history writes our stories.<\/p>\n
So good-bye 2017… on to the next one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I was honestly really pleasantly surprised by how many good things I could come up with for this year because it’s honestly been a year dominated by the bad. I’ve learned this year that the people who I grew up around never wanted me to be in their lives in the first place. My teachers, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQyAq-tE","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1591,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/05\/16\/beekeeping-update-video-of-the-action\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":0},"title":"Beekeeping update - Video of the action","date":"May 16, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"I promised my dad I would make a video of an inspection with all of the action. Here's the intro video: Today's game plan was to fill up the sugar water, and then make sure that the hive is queen right. Queen right is just terminology to mean that there\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Adventures in beekeeping"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":892,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/02\/09\/this-week-in-review-6\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":1},"title":"This week in review","date":"February 9, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Holy shit, another week has passed. The big life event was, obviously, moving. It's been awesome. Today we finally got people to pick up the last of the boxes, and the room just opened up. I'm going to let the photos do the talking, because honestly I'm too tired to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Updates"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1318,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/11\/06\/14-days-til-30\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":2},"title":"14 days til 30","date":"November 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Things to do better (Part I) Staying connected to friends Since I've moved to San Francisco, I've been a C+ friend at best. A bunch of my closest friends are coming up to the mountains this weekend, and I'm lucky they aren't the type to count phone calls missed, trips\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1301,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2014\/10\/31\/20-days-til-30\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":3},"title":"20 days til 30","date":"October 31, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"This idea was contributed by one of my most loyal readers who has asked to stay anonymous. But he's got a full list of great ideas that I'll be using over the next few weeks. If you have an idea, then please let me know it! The things you'll never\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1641,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2015\/10\/11\/this-week-in-review-19\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":4},"title":"This week in review","date":"October 11, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Ok, I'm going to get back in the swing of the family weekly update. That means many things have to happen. (1) I need to take photos. (2) I need to start recording these kids more because honestly unless you hear it from their mouths, then you won't believe it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Life Updates"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":71,"url":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/2007\/10\/16\/a-plea-to-turks-everywhere\/","url_meta":{"origin":1838,"position":5},"title":"A Plea to Turks Everywhere","date":"October 16, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"On the topic of H.R. 106 suggesting that the events in Eastern Anatolia during the dying days of the Ottoman Empire were genocide, I ask my fellow Turks to consider the following argument.This isn't an issue of hate, but an issue of reconciliation.We can continue to sling mud over the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "just thinking out loud"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1838"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1856,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1838\/revisions\/1856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.onvural.net\/melih\/thoughts\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}