It's the End of the Year as We Know It...

Clearly, blogging did not hit my priorty list this fall. I love to write and want to write, but making time for things I want and love to do seems to go by the wayside...a lot...

I just got turned on to a blog I'm excited to read into the new year, www.comfortqueen.com. The fabulous Crescent Dragonwagon (www.crescentdragonwagon.typepad.com) posted her Yule/end of year post on Facebook and I was immediately hooked. She looked back on lessons learned in 2009 and I thought I would do the same.

(an aside...it's funny how even though me leanings are toward Celtic Wheel of the Year practice, Yule still feels more like the end of the year to me than Samhain...)

This has been a year of BIG CHANGE. Looking back, I have learned the following:

• Depression is nothing to mess with and alters your perceptions of reality.

Being someone who is generally very in tune with her physical being and knowing what is going on with her body, realizing that what is going on with my mind is a much harder thing was difficult. It took three auto accidents in four days for me to realize that there was something wrong. I also learned that I am prone to the, "I feel fine, maybe I don't need my anti-depressents any more," trap, which sadly has been fed by my primary care physician. I'm not keen on pharmeceuticals for better living, therefore I'm going to try being off one more time in spring when the depression won't be coupled with seasonal affective disorder and my divorce will be final, and if that doesn't fly... I'll believe that I need them et perpetua.

• No matter how much I love someone, I can't fix other people and I am responsible for no one's behavior but my own.

I know this should be a no-brainer, but I spent ten years trying to convince my ex he had a problem that needed to be addressed, gave up, and am now watching him get involved in a new relationship and it sure seems that he's making the same mistakes. I really, really hope I'm wrong. I really like his new girlfriend and truly hope they'll find happiness together. Meanwhile, I'm still struggling with, "if I'd done things differently-itis," but recent events have pushed me over the edge to fully moving on. I have my own relationship and am working very hard at being fully cogniscent of my shortcomings (and his) and being responsible for the mistakes I made in my marriage and learning from them and doing my darndest not to repeat them.

• I have limits.

I tend to forget this and completely overburden myself. I feel like I'm capable of anything and don't realize I'm not until I'm in way over my head. This year this has caused my grades to suffer as has my musicianship in both Chorale and Take Note! and has kept me from doing any writing. All this when I've already given up acting for the time being! It's all I can do to get through school and work and parent and build a new life. I'm still failing at doing all of these things as well as I'd like. I know, however, that I can find the balance and build my new life to be healthier than the old one.

I am not a patient woman. I hate for things to be in flux and this year has been nothing but transitions. I am moving into the new year with the knowledge that I create my own reality and that by this time next year I will be preparing for my senior experience in college, be living in my own place, and have been legally divorced for at least as long as I've been separated this Yule. I will have stability where now many things are in unstable. I will no longer feel like I am walking on a funhouse floor.

This year I will also...

• Cook more
• Bake more
• Write more
• Adjust to my new financial situation
• Get the kind of grades I expect of myself
• Make time for yoga, hiking, biking
• Create the change I want to see in my life, if not the world

Wish me luck, folks. :-)

Birthdays and Changes

October is birthday central for our family. We have three of five birthdays this month, two of which have now passed.

I suppose I should say we did. Even though I think separation/divorce was the right choice for not just myself but my ex I find it difficult to realize that I don't have to do anything about his birthday. I wished him a good one, and I meant it. But was taken aback a bit (not upset or angered...just...surprised) that he wouldn't be spending time with his kids, and by extension me, on his birthday. We and our chosen extended family have gone out for dinner on each of our birthdays for what seems like forever. It just feels weird.

To top that feeling off, I had to work tonight. I am not supposed to be scheduled to work in the evenings on weeks I have my kids but this week not only did my manager forget (understandable...last week I worked two evenings for him due to emergencies on other employees parts) but the one evening he scheduled me this week was my youngest son's birthday. So his dad took the kids out after their Tae Kwon Do class...without me. Again, weird.

I've been divorced before. The first time, we were only married for four years and the situation between us was much worse. It was easy to have a stronger separation. This is different. This is eighteen-odd years of relationship and fifteen and a half of marriage and three children. I'm feeling my way through how this should look. No...how I want this to look. I'm sure he is as well. I'm sure we'll figure out what our relationship looks like now eventually, but right now it's hard and murky and difficult.