Most every year for as long as my blog can remember I have spent the "new year" post hoping that next year would be better. There were lists of things/people/body parts that had failed me. Mostly I was failing me. I let circumstances change my course, perhaps a little more than I should have. It has been a rough couple (ten or so) years on different fronts.
This year? This year is the year I really hit my stride. I purged and organized a lot of emotions that seemed to have been rotting away at me. I changed my circumstances deliberately and rather skillfully. I found what is most important to me and went with it.
This year we FINALLY sold our house. The long and torturous saga of that home went on for far too long, and lead is on far too many detours. I learned a lot about myself- first: I learned I cannot downgrade. If I absolutely had to- maybe. But it was unnecessary and started to feel self imposed. Really, I was punishing myself for making the wrong calls in the past. I found that there are certain, maybe even superficial things, that I need to be happy. I need to live in a nice home, in a nice neighborhood. This is worth the extra money, and even may delay the purchase of our next home by a couple years, but I am ok with that. I love where we are now. I had lost that sense of gratitude for what I had. My time is spent mostly in our home, and that is where the money goes. And that is alright.
The girls started kindergarten and opened up a whole new world for me, a complex and highly regulated world, but there has been a level of freedom with that on which I did not know I yearned for. I have enjoyed watching my kids in action. Watching the girls test their boundaries of independence, and just how much capacity for learning they hold.
I have learned how to handle outside influences on my emotional status. I've learned how to let other people's agendas be their own, and not directly impact my own well being. This has been a hard lesson. It has indeed been a long road to find how to protect myself from others who may not exactly have my best interest at heart. At my age, I must admit to feeling sheepish just learning these things. I feel so vastly more independent and in control of myself and my feelings.
I've done a lot of soul searching into who I am, where I've been, and how I have adjusted to all of the above. I've learned a lot about parenting, and my thought processes that involve the kids. I hate to gloss over, but I am not interested on writing a book on my silly little psyche, as this would be the most unremarkable and confusing tome to anyone but myself.
Also I do not mean to imply we are floating along on rainbows and sunshine by any means. This does involve a sense of grounded inner peace I have on my daily reflection in the minutes before I fall asleep each night. The burdens of so many problems have been lightened. Mostly by the understandings I have come to about myself. Ironing out the kinks in my life has made the journey so much smoother. I will admit, after a turbulent time of bouncing around various housing situations with mountains of expenditures there were times I had a negative red balance in the bank, and we were walking a tight rope to get along. Watching these problems fall by the wayside, one by one has been hugely cathartic. It's allowed me to turn my attention to other things, relations with family, in my marriage, and as a mother. I have made noticeable improvements in all arenas. Mostly by working on myself, as trite and vague as that may be.
Looking forward to next year! There are a few things I am pepped about. The first, I joined on with The Biggest Blogging Loser. (Which I have a whole post awaiting to be typed out)
Vowing to lose weight and be healthier in the new year- HOW ORIGINAL.
The second! This April The Husband and I will celebrate 10 years of marriage. I am completely caught off guard by this, as it seems entirely impossible. Yet nonetheless squeal-worthy.
And third, unless I can come up with a fourth, the kids will be turning one year older just as we wrap up ringing in the new year. This means the twins turn 6. Which is also equally impossible to my feeble mind. Six seems so much more manageable, like I will no longer to be able to say I have three "small" children. Little Man turns three. (batten down the hatches!) We might even potty train him this year, with any amount of luck.
2013 will be the year I start saying yes to things. The year I try and pull us out of living in survival mode.
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