My Life According to My Blog Archive

"How am I doing with my promise to write daily?" was (one of) my early morning thoughts:

Well? All things considered, it looks like 2018 will outrank 2017 when it comes to the frequency of posts. But I'm still off to a slow start.

I started writing out loud in January of 2008. It was the winter of "Building Courage" after my last and final break up with the man I thought I would marry. 

Thoughts of "forever" were dashed and after the initial stages of grieving that loss, I picked myself up and built a pretty incredible little life.

As my eyes scan the years, I see the highlight reel run past me:

2008

The year of Mom's family's book of memories

The year of inviting family and friends into my life and our home

The year of my hernia surgery, which led up to:

2009

The year I returned to school

The year I started to dance like people were watching because ...

I started to prepare to compete in a dance competition, which was in:

2010

The year I danced 

The year I started doing bookkeeping out of my home

The year of great flexibility

Family and leisure first 

I worked in my day job in between the cracks

All good things must come to an end, which led to:

2011

The year my job lost its flexibility

I stuck it out until I returned from my great Alaskan holiday adventure

I quit my job and...

I was hired by the school system

I thought my work challenges were over

Little did I know they had just begun.

2012

The year of working to regain my reputation within my job at the school

The year of regaining my sense of self

The year I broke

What in the world was I going to do to support myself if I couldn't hold down a job in the "real world"?

It was the year I reopened my daycare.

2013, 2014, 2015

These were years of coasting a little

They were years of "showing up" and being there for others

They were years with shadows of ill health, loss and grief.

I finally completed the book of memories for Dad's family

It was a time of family bonding, in good times and in sad

These were years of starting to become more concerned about Mom's health.

2016

The year my daycare died

The year Mom fell and I started seeing the world in a whole new light

The year I restarted my "career". Again.

2017

The year of Mom

2018

The year after Mom has brought me back to where I started 

I am back at the beginning of 2008 all over again. 

I need to find ways to (re)build my courage. 

I feel like I'm recovering after a break up.

I crave, need and live for my weekends

When the weekend arrives, I feel like a broken hearted survivor of a relationship that has ended

A weekend without purpose, is a weekend lost.

I am no longer revolving my life around my desire to head back out to Mom's

I have been sleep walking through the weekends

They serve little purpose, other than giving me the strength to endure another work week.

When I first started writing within this little space of mine, my focus was on finding a positive spin about any little thing.

Mom marvelled at the fact that I could come up with a story about nothing

I liked my writing back in those days.

I have discovered so many inspirational writers and speakers throughout these years

Glennon Doyle is the most all-encompassing truth teller and motivator I know

I love everything I have read by Glennon.

Glennon speaks of "writing from a scar and not from an open wound"...

I'm writing from an open wound right now.

I keep picking the scab and it won't heal

I may never write again if I wait to write from the scar that will eventually form.

So I'm writing from a wound which starts to heal

Then breaks open when I least expect it.

I felt so courageous as I lived "The Year of Mom"

I feel weak and vulnerable now.

I mostly speak of the lessons learned,

Memories made,

Conversations had.

I am grateful for a year with so few regrets.

I guess the year took its toll on me after all

I created a world where I focused on Mom.

Mom is gone.

I have weekends at my disposal and I have grown accustomed to being selfish with my time

I saved my energy for those trips to Mom's

I gathered up all my optimism and packed it up with me each and every time

I did not want to be a Gloomy Gus while in Mom's presence.

Mom is gone

And I am sad

I have time

But I don't have the energy to share what I have

I'm used to saving it up for a rainy day.

It's raining now

You can't save energy

You have to generate it from action

Doing

Becoming

Being courageous.

The most courageous thing I do these days, is go to work

My work days deplete me

I feel like a wet dish rag at the end of my days away from home

I long for weekends.

I need to find a renewed purpose

I need to push myself out and beyond these moments.

Building courage becomes harder with age

Becoming comfortable with the quiet feels easier

But (as Mom said at the very end of her life), "This ... is not living".

Mom is right again.

She always was.

I will persevere

I will rebuild and restart life as I know it from where I am

I've done it before

I'll do it again

I will create a year worth remembering.

And this too, shall pass...