2009 - A lesson in expectations

I felt an anticipation for 2009 right as Tết rolled around last year.  My wife felt it, too - it was a tangible expectation, like the thick, humid air before a storm - and we both were convinced that great things would happen in the following months.
Then... nothing.
I started school, then had to drop out, then started again.  Mai Vi started working a little more so our income rose a little.  I got a new bike.  She improved in managing all those little roudy Primary kids on Sundays.  Very mundane events, or long-time plans finally starting to materialize, but nothing that fit that strong anticipation we felt last spring.  I was slightly disappointed as Tết came and went this year and I did not feel the same anxious expectation, nor did I have anything to show for last year's.  Expectations have a way of skewing our view of the present, but I was honestly trying to determine why my anticipation had been so far off.
One night after an especially-introspective bike ride home from work I was struck with a prompting, an idea formulating that felt important but evasively vague.  It all started with wondering what to do with this blog, since I don't blog much anymore, but my thoughts lead me into much deeper issues.  Like smoke from the camp fire, every time I grasped too hard - or even looked too directly to get a glimpse of the actual shape and form - it vanished and I was left wanting.  Mai Vi went to bed, I stayed up doing homework and coding a project for a friend, while the ideas in my head slowly settled and finally grew silent.  I brushed my teeth, turned out the lights and knelt at my bed to pray.  Before my knees hit the floor I was back on my feet, head racing.
Lights on, pen lid off, old printout from last semester as my canvas, I scratched out the ephemeral thoughts even as they flitted away, no longer grasping for meaning but scrambling to manage the overflow of mental data.  They were neatly processed now, folded and starched and ready for consumption after my evening activities allowed them room to self-organize.  The past year made sense now, in the dim glow of my desk lamp, but it soon would not so I urgently disregarded spelling and grammar and any sense of order just to let these thoughts make their way to the paper before disappearing into a million ethereal pieces.
See, I grew up last year, and I'm still getting used to the rest of my life.
Here's my thoughts, as they are on the back of an old school printout:

Year of maturing - the prevailing theme - I felt it would be a big year but didn't have much to show for it except school - but I see now it's more of an internal progression, a growing up - xanghe represents the care free, blissful days of perpetual honeymoons - that phase has passed and it's now on with adult life - on the way home from work, I realized I'm approaching 30, which is not old, but it's too old to claim ignorance or innonence as I have been doing - recently I told my younger brother to be a man, but was I projecting? - over the years, xanghe has transformed from a silly nickname to a symbol of my continual search for meaning, depicted by the ubiquitous bee - time has passed for me to claim xanghe as my alias, but it will remain a reminder of my search - it's time to be a man