Saturday, January 3, 2009

Growing Pains

I have a very bad habit of becoming quite the little hermit when things in my life are not going as I had hoped. This results in me not having a lot of contact with the people in my life for long periods of time at different points in my life.

Somewhere along the line it has occurred to me that I am not in charge of keeping in touch. It is a new thing for me actually. I think in any relationship whether it be of the romantic, familial, or friendshipial the door swings both ways. So, I have stopped felling guilty about all the phone calls I haven’t made, and started trying to figure out why I am not making them.

Knowing myself, and what with pushing 40 oh so hard these days, I know a thing or two about people in general too. I think I have learned not to depend on people. So now that I have a moment to breathe for the first time in over a decade I am starting to examine my relationships on all fronts and how fulfilling they are to me. Then, if they are not fulfilling, I have to figure out why and if I want to do anything about it.

I feel like now I have a lot of people in my life that I keep at arm's length. I do not want to stop having them in my life, but my relationship with them has changed. I just do not feel as close to them as I used to feel. For all kinds of reasons.

I don't know if I ever will trust my sisters, but, they ARE my sisters, and I want to know them.

Some of my friendships are very old, and I think we became complacent with each other. We got used to the security of the friendship without maintaining it.
So, then I have all these people in my life who are relatives or friends I have known so long I do not remember not knowing them, but then I have new people I am meeting every day. I feel like I can be myself with new people.

With my "old" people, I feel like who I am and who they think I am are very different so I feel stifled and frustrated when I spend time with them and I am trying to figure out why and what I want to do make things better.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Hello 2009

2008 was a hell of a year. I learned a lot. I grew a lot. I made a lot of changes.


At the beginning of 2008 I made some resolutions. This year, as 2009 dawns, resolutions, we don’t need no stinking resolutions.


Here’s how 2008’s resolutions panned out.

Lay off the soda. I will stop drinking so much soda, and I will not start drinking too much juice or chocolate milk instead. --- Done, done, and done. Also, I stopped drinking diet soda and started drinking the high-octane stuff when I do drink soda. Turns out diet soda tricks your body, and does nothing to deplete the fatness of your ass.


I will go someplace where I need my passport. --- Well, did not do this one. But I did need my passport for ID, twice.


I will try to find somebody to go some place I need my passport with me. If not, I will go by myself, and stop thinking I am a Cyclops or something because I have not yet found someone I want to spend the rest of my life with. --- No trips in 2008 AT ALL. Not a Cyclops, lots of regrets about the road not taken in relation to men. I feel like I’m a decade behind. It took me a long time to get over all the bullshit in my life, and now I am ready to be myself, and know who I am. Now I have to find somebody to keep up.


In an attempt to have a rest of my life, I will take well care of myself. I will find a doctor I trust, and figure out what I need to change about what and how I eat, I will get a shrink, and a nutritionist, or a voodoo doll, or whatever else I have to do to feel and look better. --- Do I look like I know voodoo? I feel and look better. I found a doctor I trust. I went to a shrink. I went to a nutritionist. I changed the way I was eating.


I will forgive myself for my lack of professional ambition. I do not want to be in charge. I do not want to squander my potential, my intellect, my leadership abilities, and my emotional investment working for the man. I just wanna pump out some crap off my desk everyday, and get paid regularly. I do not want over time. I do not want anybody calling me at home. I do not want to pretend I give a flying fuck about work when I am not there because I don’t. I care about a lot of things the petty, inane intricacies of office politics do not make the list. --- Mission accomplished.


I will start writing every day again. --- I did not follow through on this one. I really changed a lot of the ways in which I handled conflict and demands upon my time. I worked really hard this year, but it was a lot of stuff it was too hard for me to write about as it was happening. Suffice to say I am even hotter shit than I was a year ago, and have successfully racked up several asses and names.

I will try to engage more in the world. I have been embarrassed about my finances, and my professional life, and my strained relationships with my family, so I have become a virtual hermit, so I do not have to risk people asking me about any of these things. --- I talk much less to my family and much more to others. I am working on finding new people for my life. I am learning to let go of I shoulds and to embrace I wants. I go to the shrink again now. It is helping me a lot.

I will cut myself at least as much slack as I would cut anyone else, and stop thinking I should have transformed my house into a palatial retreat by now. That is not true. This place was a freaking shit hole when I got here. There is so much more to do, but I am out of money for the moment, but I can still work on cleaning, and sorting through stuff, and I have already accomplished so much. --- I got more money. I did more stuff. I am getting it done baby, and I actually don’t hate this house anymore.


I will try to figure out how better to communicate my needs to people. I have always been a good friend. The kind of friend who will help you move. It has been tough for me to accept that people have not offered to help me with stuff at my house. And, I have been afraid to ask for fear they will say no. I am afraid I am not important to anyone. That I am not a priority to anyone. I am afraid that nobody good likes me. --- I was wrong on all fronts. There are plenty of people who support me, they are just not who I expected to be there supporting me. I had to change my expectations of the people in my life, let new people in, and come to terms with letting some people slip into my past.

I will take the CPA exam, and I am certain I will pass it. Then I will get my masters so I can get an adjunct position. I want to teach English 101, so I teach people to love words, and to see and feel their power. --- Survey says X. I have not done any of the above yet, but I have been writing in the course of my professional life. 2008 did not pan out how I planned at all. The CPA exam had to get back burnered but it is on my 2009 agenda.


I will forgive myself for my professional mistakes. It is ok that I do not ever intend to make a commitment to doing taxes, and that I never intended to stay at my last two jobs. It is ok that they did not like me. --- Yes, it is ok. I did not like them either. I was just using them for the paycheck.

I will start writing my book. --- Ah, so scary!