I love Christmas. I love New Year’s Day. I love giving things (and some getting too!) I love spending time with family and friends. I love explaining my most recent injury (this year I broke my ankle the Sunday before Christmas) But mostly I love the end of it all and the beginning of something new.
I am a person who loves patterns and organization and planning and lists. And last year I declared 2008 just entirely too miserable to discuss in any way at all and didn’t bother doing the count down. But 2009 found me lucky. Actually, it was the same sort of lucky I was in 2007 and 2008 but just was too blind or to close to see it. But I found it again with the help of some friends, my lovely husband and son and of course my 2 different psychologists.
January – We battled Chicken Pox which my son self diagnosed as mosquito bites. Thomas and I traveled to OKC for the OWL Yule Ball and I said goodbye to the Wizard Rock community. I wrote a lot. January was a good mental health month. Although I was just 60 days out from no longer taking anti-depressants and had yet to start to circle the anxiety drain.
February – I was madly in planning mode for what turned out to be two wonderful vacations. A cruise with Tom’s sister and parents and a trip to China. Thomas asked about sex, sort of. I failed him, totally.
March – We go on a cruise. It was a lot of fun. We came back and immediately decided to take Tom’s parents on another one!
April – I read a lot. I start to struggle and have some hard weeks.
May – I effectively dropped off the face of the earth. But I start to feel a lot better out of no where.
June – Thomas turns 9 and continues to make me one of the luckiest people in the whole world. Shortly after I talk about feeling so much better and how I will never ever again let things get bad, I stop sleeping.
July – For the first time ever, I don’t hit rock bottom but immediately start seeing my current psychologist(s). We got to China. I see Rose. I feel, can I say it, happy?
August – Tom has a birthday. Thomas goes back to school. I take on the task of a new lunch regimen.
September – I surprise Tom one morning with a weekend trip to Dallas. It was lovely and one of my most favorite things I did with him. I return and begin antidepressants the following day. Within 2 weeks I feel remarkably better and clearer and am not plagued with the side effects of previous medications. I get braces, I take Thomas to see the Dalai Llama. I get some teeth pulled.
October – I take Thomas to Indiana for fall break and have a lovely weekend with my brother. I ran into my psychologist at SuperTarget and get a really great story out of it that will probably always make me laugh at myself.
November – I turn 32. I get pneumonia. We spend Thanksgiving with my brother in Indiana. All of us return with our limbs. I figure out some boundaries for some people in my life.
December – I love December. It was altogether great. I spend a lot of time thinking about how for me, this is all I have. This one life. I don’t believe in an afterlife. This is it. And I have the choice to do what I have to to not be miserable, to stop making others miserable and to even make things better if only very superficially for other people. I realize, like so, so many of us, I am lucky beyond all belief. I have a great husband and child. I am rebuilding a relationship with my parents and brother in a way that is healthy. I am blessed with the most amazing family that exists as in laws. I have friends who will seemingly do anything for me no matter how much I fuck up. And most of all I am loved and can love. Lucky.
Oh and I tripped over firewood, flipped on my back and broke my ankle while walking across the street. But hey, it was another great laugh at myself story!