The end of 2006

The compulsion to blog or even write, for that matter, has been low. The reason? I think it must have something to do with the very little time I have been spending alone with my thoughts. I’ve been washing my thoughts clean in my waking hours with TV, wine, hanging out with friends, practice, work-work-work. This is not necessarily the best thing for a writer to do, but it does help avoid confronting all those feelings.

Everyone does an end-of-year round up so I shall too. This time last year I was looking forward to graduation. After an emotionally wrenching two years, I would finally have my diploma in hand and be able to really call myself a writer. Graduation was magical, though it was somewhat hijacked by drama via the Robot. But in my life, then, what wasn’t? (Funny I say then and even now I spend energy thinking about him every day, those rare days I don’t are a gift) I loved him and expected it; maybe I even needed that drama.

After graduation things get murky until the next big event in February. A show by the Collective. This show was monumental and drove the nail in the coffin of our relationship, though I didn’t know it then. I had so much fun that night. One month later, almost exactly – disaster. You can read my past blog to feel that pain. I’ve put so much time into thinking about it – clearly more time then he has. Even still, to this day, neither of them has come to me in person to say anything useful about it. I expect that will never happen now and I am OK with not knowing, because I know that by now, the real reasons are buried so deep in excuses that none of us would really know the truth with a capital “T”. It has been something each of us has had to find for ourselves.

Let’s leave behind the defining moment of my year for a minute and look at the results of that moment.

I am different. In a profound way, in a way I can’t even begin to explain.
- Am I happier? Yes and no, I feel afloat still, not like myself still. Like I am a new being still figuring out its place. Perhaps I was never myself. I am still discovering. Who am I? What am I? Should I be here or elsewhere?

I am expressing myself in a new way.
- I am in a band that plays often and we are doing well. I am thankful for this outlet and thankful that in doing this Walter and I can help each other redefine our lives without the people we spent so many years invested in. I hope he is finding himself as much as I am. We were both so broken, but the support and encouragement we’ve received has been so great and so overwhelming. I never knew so much good. So many people banded together to hold us and to listen. Thank you.

Death is the fate of the turning of the days.
- Bogart is no longer with us. As is the fate with each passing year, someone close moves on to whatever is next. Death is one of those things that just happens and I feel I know who the next will be and that it will be entirely too soon and I hope beyond all hope that I am wrong. That moment in March was like a death, I went through official grief counseling where in the counselor said more then once, sometimes it’s easier if they just die. She was equating what happened to me to what happens to people with parents or spouses with Alzheimer’s or some other degenerative disease or a severe injury that leaves them not the person they were. It was a more true comparison then I wished to contemplate. Let me tell you though, death is not easier – no matter what. The truth is, nothing that causes that much pain is particularly easy.

I have found love even though I am actively pushing it away in my mind.
- I am not sure what to say about this except that I know it has happened. Just like all of my relationships, it is a surprise yet seems so inevitable. How will I make sure this one is different? Perhaps I am too tired to make it work, too bitter and hurt to trust. My tactic has been, what happens happens, no plan no goal, let’s just see. For the first time in my life I have no path forward for myself, no goal for this. I am letting life unfold. It is both magical and scary but affords those sweet moments you only find if you have no expectations beyond being decent and honest with each other.

I miss my family.
- Ever since moving here leaving my only family over two thousand miles away, I have missed them. But this year I see the years I have been here stretched out behind me like a long flowing scarf. Time seems so short. Have I wasted much of it by being so far away? What could have been different if I had gone home? Should I go home still? The answers to these questions are complicated, but perhaps they only seem that way.

I realize that this post is very internal and contemplative. Mostly I have things that have happened that have no real answers for them. The right and wrong are still unclear and my path is murky. Over all, I am doing better then I have in years, at least on the inside. I have people who actually care about me. I have good friends who have stuck through years and years with me and been kind and sweet and honest and loving all at once. I have a family who is open and loving and I have a person in my life who loves me for just who I am and has no grand illusions or swinging feelings or scenes. I am a part of a musical expression that is really connecting with people. That makes my soul fly and my heart warm. Even complete strangers in a strange city found time and energy to come see us and complement us and share in our emotions. I got a hug from a girl who said, “That was me once too, thank you” One doesn’t expect a hug in NYC.

Perhaps that is the moral of the story of my year. The unexpected. I should embrace that more. Live life more forward. Perhaps that should be my resolution. Before I see what Santa brought me I should resolve to come into things open and unexpectant. Hope for the best and expect nothing.

Here is to a new year. Thank you all for helping me move into it looking back only a little. Time to hope for the best and to not expect.