2002 Review


Five things that 2002 taught me:
1) I can forgive much more than I thought I could.
2) There are far more people in this world who care about me or are interested in me than I thought a year ago.
3) Things I thought I’d just have to “put up with” can, in fact, be changed for the better.
4) Family of choice is every bit as important as blood relatives.
5) I can, in fact, share Sam with other loves. I wasn’t wholly sure, as I haven’t ever loved anyone as deeply as I love him.

Five personally significant events of 2002:
1) I re-entered counseling. Sam started therapy. Our family continued therapy.
2) Relationship with Sam deepened greatly and our family interactions continued to improve.
3) Met goddessinga and greyknight and became a quad.
4) I had a miscarriage.
5) G (Sam’s daughter) was hospitalized for depression.
5) Sam and I joined Trybalaka.
6) Sam and I began seriously writing a novel together.
7) I started taking two medications that greatly improved my sleep and overall energy level, which really improved my quality of life.
8) Dealt with major surgery and illness of someone I dearly love, who is thankfully on the mend now.

Five things I want to do in 2003:
1) Continue tossing emotional baggage.
2) Continue to deepen relationships with all of my family/loves.
3) Finish that novel.
4) Find some way to bring in more money that doesn’t require less time with my family.
5) Continue my education.
6) Continue the process of better organizing my home and life
7) Improve my health.

Five things I don’t want to do in 2003:
1) Have any avoidable crises.
2) Give in to the temptation to “rescue” anybody.
3) Spend energy mourning past mistakes.
4) Allow anyone to come between me and my family.
5) Fall back into any bad habits.

Five people who I’d like to know better in 2003: (Far more than five!)
sambear, greyknight and goddessinga
Our kids, G, shadowkatt, realpochacco, Son and Little Miss
mique_mique, Alice, Brian, Susan, Joyce, Aaron, James, John, Ron, Dianne – I know I’m leaving someone out.
Everybody on my LJ friends list

So much has happened in the last few months that it’s difficult to remember the rest of the year! I’d have to say that the quad is the biggest news of the year for me. But there has been a lot, and I have to say that it’s been very good.

We began the year with cybrcat‘s birthday party, which was lovely. We haven’t seen nearly enough of her and her husband and son this year, though.

Stalker creep posted prostitution ads in my name again—nothing new. What was new was posting them in my mother’s name, too, and including my parents’ phone number in the ads. He also put my parents’ names, phone numbers, home address, and Mom’s place of employment on his website. We were in court repeatedly for months while the Gwinnett County Police Department flailed about incompetently and never did subpoena the proper information to do anything meaningful. He’s gone into hiding again for the time being, and I found that I just don’t get nearly so upset these days—I know we’re as safe as we can be from him, and he’s really just a nuisance like a mosquito buzzing around. He has no power over me, but I’ll swat him if I get the opportunity to do so.

My parents gave me Mom’s old sewing machine and I started taking a sewing class at Joann Fabrics. I wasn’t able to finish it due to the next change…

I started working at a company near here with an agreement that I’d work 30 hours a week and get health insurance for me and Katie—that would allow me to be home by the time R & G were home from school. After a month (when the insurance was supposed to kick in), the company informed me that no, I’d have to work full time to get benefits. So I quit. This may seem like a bad thing, but it was actually a positive thing—I set and maintained healthy boundaries, didn’t take any crap from them, and didn’t feel guilty at all about walking away.

We found that Katie is allergic to yet another antibiotic. She started having migraines. We found one medication that prevented most of them and another that stops most of them in their tracks if she takes it as soon as she realizes one is happening. She had a sleep study, which verified that she has restless leg syndrome, and started taking medication which greatly improves her sleep—thus improving her life in general. She very seldom has fibromyalgia pain complaints now and is feeling much better now than a year ago.

Homeschooling just gets more and more wonderful for all of us.

We finally replaced my old car, buying Alluna. I loved not having a car payment for several years, but the old car was really on its last legs, and we have much more freedom and reliability with Alluna.

A good friend FINALLY left the psychobitch to whom he was married. There was much rejoicing!

Babies and toddlers seemed to become a much bigger part of our lives this year. rasilio and _starrgirl_ were bringing Jackson over for games. Our friends Alisa and David had little Rhianna. We spent some time with chelona and voltbang with Maddie. At one point we had a CUUPs event here and there were six infants and toddlers crawling around in our living room. That trend continued through the year so now we have a baby bed (on loan from friends) set up here for as long as they’ll let us use it. Sam and I decided that if we get pregnant, it’ll be a blessing, so we stopped trying to prevent pregnancy.

The year in pets: Alanna adopted us. A few months later we had to find a new home for her after she decided that litter boxes just weren’t her thing. The kittens, Mica and Moonstone, came into our lives. Zoë (the dog) left. Most recently, Boone sauntered in. Shelley continues to hang on but doesn’t seem to be feeling well at all, so I don’t know how much longer we’ll have her with us. She seems to have reached some sort of feline agreement with Boone, though, as if she’s passing Katie to him.

Sam and I worked out the agreements under which we felt comfortable opening our relationship again, and as mentioned above, we met our sweeties. Finding another couple was a HUGE surprise. We also got to actually attend a couple of Poly Southeast events and met more poly people in other ways.

We got a piano and enough bookshelves to put all of our books out in decent order. We got a better mattress for our bed. We set up a Linux server running Samba. We ran network cabling down to the playroom.

I acknowledged something I’ve tried to avoid naming for years. I removed toxic people from my life. I began singing regularly again. I allowed pictures of myself to not only be taken but shared on the internet. Our fireplace was FINALLY fixed after over a year of complaints to the landlord, so we are enjoying it again. I started journaling here.

Current Mood: 🤔contemplative
Current Music: Family playing Scrabble and Little Miss singing
Cyn is Rick's wife, Katie's Mom, and Esther & Oliver's Mémé. She's also a professional geek, avid reader, fledgling coder, enthusiastic gamer (TTRPGs), occasional singer, and devoted stitcher.
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