Reflecting On the Past Year

word­can­dlemage men­tioned this week that he does his year­ly review/resolutions on his birth­day for his per­son­al new year instead of at Samhain or the cal­en­dar New Year. I’d been feel­ing very introspective/retrospective already, and I’ve decid­ed to swipe the idea from him.

This week’s affir­ma­tion as post­ed by keira­cait­lyn was right on target:
New under­stand­ing emerges as I see old dis­ap­point­ments turn around and bring my dreams into being. I increase my faith in the Uni­verse with the under­stand­ing that my path to attain­ment may not be eas­i­ly seen for what it is but is always real­ized nevertheless.

I have to say that I think we’re in a bet­ter place this year than last year, although some peo­ple might find that odd. Of course, last year I had a mis­car­riage and we had to hos­pi­tal­ize G for sui­ci­dal ideation dur­ing the week of my birth­day. This week def­i­nite­ly rates much high­er than that one.

For instance, sam­bear has been unem­ployed or under­em­ployed for months now. But he was in a job that he hat­ed, and he was mis­er­able. He’s much hap­pi­er and search­ing for a bet­ter job. We reduced our liv­ing expens­es as much as we could, and we’re surviving.

Sam’s kids went to live with their moth­er. We don’t think that’s the best place for them or a healthy place at all. We fought it and lost. But our home is a more peace­ful place than ever before. Yes, we wor­ry about them, but we have to be Zen about it. We might as well enjoy the peace while we have it. We have more ener­gy for shad­owkatt, each oth­er, and rela­tion­ships with oth­er people. 

Instead of deal­ing with con­stant con­flict and low-lev­el crises (some­times high-lev­el ones, like G’s hos­pi­tal­iza­tion), we’ve only had one cri­sis in the last three months. It was­n’t direct­ly avoid­able and we dealt with it quite well with help from our fam­i­ly and friends.

I went back to col­lege. Final­ly! That was part of a real sea-change for me, to be hon­est. For the first time in my adult life, I decid­ed to make my plans based on what I want­ed for myself and shad­owkatt, peri­od. I explained to sam­bear that he could be with me or not, but that I was mov­ing ahead.

That may sound like a bad thing or some­thing that would indi­cate trou­ble in our rela­tion­ship. While it did come as a result of trou­ble in our rela­tion­ship, it’s not a bad thing for the rela­tion­ship. Instead, it’s about me final­ly defin­ing myself pri­mar­i­ly as me, not as part of a rela­tion­ship. I am respon­si­ble for myself and my child—not for my partner(s). Nobody else is respon­si­ble for us. My life is, indeed, all about me.

That actu­al­ly allows me to have a health­i­er rela­tion­ship with sam­bear and any oth­er SOs, because they aren’t built on depen­dence at all. Healthy inter­de­pen­dence, yes. But I don’t feel trapped any­more. I know that I can thrive on my own, that I can take care of Katie and me, and that we’ll always be fine.

I’ve refo­cused on improv­ing my health in any way I can, with­out regard to whether or not I have all the access to med­ical care that I’d like. I’m tak­ing back my power.

I’ve also made some progress in not being in a con­stant state of com­bat readi­ness as noelfi­gart put it, when kids are around. I’m able to relax much more than before while still being a good parent.

Two things that I real­ly miss—the quad and Trybalaka—have left our lives since last year. We’re still on very good terms with ga_sunshine and greyknight, though, which is a bless­ing. And I got an email out of the blue this week from some­one who wants to form a new group!

So yes, it has been a good year. Since this is already so long, I’ll do res­o­lu­tions in anoth­er post.