A Year In A Life
“We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives… not looking for flaws, but for potential.” ~ Ellen Goodman
I recently realized an advantage to blogging that I hadn’t previously considered. I can look back and read what I was thinking over the past year in my own words. I get to over-analyze my life all over again in a year-end re-cap blog post! I can see how far I’ve come or how far I’ve fallen.
Of course the same thing can be accomplished through keeping a journal. I tried that for quite a while. My biggest problem with a written journal is that my handwriting can’t keep up with my thoughts. No matter how quickly I scribble I end up losing much of what I am thinking because writing it is too time consuming. I type much faster than I write. My second biggest problem with a written journal is that it’s private. I get no feedback, no other perspectives, nothing.
So, without further ado….my 2009 in review…
January
I had a lot to say in January. I wrote 37 blog posts that month! Of course many of them were about my problems with Best Buy and free promotional posts for the travel channel. I was new to blogging and unemployed. My first post of 2009 was a brief re-cap of 2008 and I used the same quote I originally intended for this one. My outlook for the new year was positive. I ended the month still feeling lost due to having been unemployed for 8 months.
February
Wow. February was a dark month for me. I described it in several posts as being in a “funk“. I remember how I actually felt as I wrote those posts. Completely and utterly hopelessly depressed and anxious. Late in the month is when Gina found out her cancer had spread to her lungs.
March
I seemed to be feeling a bit better in March, despite turning 39. Either not much was going on or I was hiding a lot. I wrote several posts about dark things I was thinking about but many were about tv shows and the mortgage industry.
April
April was a big month. I started going to meditation class, wrote my first posts about narcissists and won a trip with Gina for a spa weekend in Hershey, PA. I remember writing those posts about narcissists. They consumed me for an entire week. It was as if I had to write them. I was purging. I did a ton of research and by the end of the week felt more than a little bit crazy myself after having spent so much time trying to think like they do.
May
I was disappointed that I wasn’t going to be able to afford to go on my solo trip on mother’s day but thrilled Gina and I won a trip together. Now I’m more grateful for those few fun and relaxing days alone with her than I can even express. May was another big month. I quit smoking. Sort of. I quit for 10 days. I also finally got a job after having been unemployed for a full year. May was also the month I moved my blog to this site.
June
I spent much of June trying to figure out how to run this site and how to adjust to working full time again.
July
July. Another unfortunate event occurred early in the month. I never blogged about it. I recently mentioned that I lost a friend because she chose to stay in a bad situation. I was vague. It was a huge dramatic ordeal that occurred one evening/night in early July. I haven’t written about it because I’ve been afraid. Afraid that my friend and her son will suffer consequences if I write about it. I felt shell-shocked, run over by a truck and had flashbacks for about two weeks afterwards. In an attempt to express some of those feelings without disclosing the details I instead wrote about the cycle of abuse, isolation abuse and keeping secrets for a narcissist. It did help me somewhat but I will be writing about the details soon.
August and September
Both months seem to have been fairly uneventful besides winning another trip that I haven’t used yet.
October
My youngest son contracted (and survived!) the dreaded H1N1 virus. Even BIGGER and definitely better….October is when my friend Dawn visited me on her birthday. It was so cool to finally meet her in person after having shared the most intimate details of our lives and tons of laughs over the past year. We had a great time at lunch. Unfortunately that was also the month Gina found out her cancer had spread to her liver.
November and December
And that’s when 2009 really went to shit. November is the month in which Gina stopped returning my phone calls and I had to call her husband to find out what was going on. November is when I found out there was no more hope and she was given a week to live. She died December 12th. While I am grateful that I got to say goodbye I miss her so much. Just yesterday I almost called her to tell her about some absurd thing that I knew we would laugh about. On the other hand, I did start a new job at which I can work from home that I’m excited about.
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I’ve never really thought about ranking entire calendar years as far as my overall happiness or unhappiness but after going over this year in depth for this post I have been thinking about it. There are four years from my adult life that stand out. They are 1995, 1998, 2007 and 2009. It’s probable that 2009 stands out because I do not yet have any distance from it and it ended with the death of one of my closest friends.
1995 was the best! I was 25, single, renting a house with 2 girlfriends, my career was progressing nicely and all I was responsible for was myself. It was carefree and fun.
Most of 1998 was ugly. Really ugly. But I can’t call it an overall bad year because my oldest son was born that year. Because of that, I consider it an overall good year. Strange how one extremely good or extremely bad event can cloud our memory of an entire 12 month time period in hindsight.
That leaves only 2007. Worst. Year. Ever. It started out shaky, got consistently worse, and ended with me, my marriage and my career completely falling apart. I can’t think of one good thing to say about 2007 except that my kids were healthy. Yes, that is a good thing of course. But overall I was more consistently unhappy completely miserable that year than any other year in my adult life.
Using 2007 as rock bottom for unhappiness, 2008 was considerably better. One of the best actually. And also compared to 2007, this year wasn’t too bad overall. It was rocky and ended on an extremely painful note but my family is healthy, happy and together. We aren’t in immediate danger of financial disaster as we were earlier in the year. I’m going back to school, going on a solo trip for mother’s day and beginning a new job that I am hopeful about. I’ve learned many valuable lessons and made some wonderful new friends.
Still, I’m not sad to see 2009 end and will raise a glass on New Year’s Eve to a happy and healthy 2010 for everyone.
Thanks for stopping by!
It’s good to look on the bright side of everything. Nothing is as worse as you expect or as good as you hope. Life is just a series of ups and down. It’s nothing further from the truth. It’s almost new year so I got a song for you to view. It’s simple and true. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHFDa9efCQU
Enjoy,
PS: I got to your blog from mom blogging. Hope to see you to have a chance to interact with you there.
Hope you have a happy new year.
Thanks Sherry. I’ve always liked that song and the video. Happy new year to you too!
Ohh I like this idea Cyndi! I’ve had a LiveJournal since early 2004 and you’re right- it’s so great to have it all categorized and archived to go back and look at. And I type almost 100 wpm so it’s much more my pace to get my thoughts out. Sometimes I’ll pick a date and then go back and look at ea. date for ea. year to see how it progressed in my life. Eventually I hope to have enough money and time to sit down and d/l it all to one of those “publish your own” type services to have in hard copy, too. I’m always paranoid a site will go down or their server will crash or something and then 5 yrs of my journalling will be lost – same w/ the blog! I’d be so heartbroken!
Christina´s last blog ..Merry Christmas!
Ok, now I have to check out LiveJournal. Dammit.
i love that blogs allow us to look back. they are journals. i hadn’t thought about the perk of it being interactive. you are right. i have a handwritten journal and a typed one plus my blog. each one serves a bit of a different purpose. sometimes i write for me alone, that tends to end up in the handwritten one. when i am recording thoughts, events etc, that seems to make it into my typed journal. but when i need feedback, when i need advice or encouragement, well i blog.
it was interesting to recap with you. i found myself saying, “oh yeah i remember when she was thinking about that.” you have grown so much this year. it makes me wonder what 2010 holds. maybe you will quit smoking for good?
happy new year!
consuella´s last blog ..falling backwards
We have all grown a lot this year it seems, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that we found each other to discuss all of our *stuff*. I keep telling myself that Gina would want me to quit smoking, hoping that will help motivate me to actually do it.
it may sound silly, but a highlight of my year was somehow finding your blog! we have a lot in common and it’s nice to find someone out there who understands the things i’ve gone through/am going through. you are wonderful cyndi!
may i recommend trying the Mayfly Project?
http://meish.org/mayfly/
Aww…that’s so sweet, and not silly at all! You and the other women whose blogs I follow regularly are highlights in my life too.
Writing about things that happen in our lives,on our blogs; not only do we grow through our experiences with others, we inspire others too. I’ve come to have a deeper appreciation of blog writers who dare to express all sides of their humanity, fearlessly.
Since finding you and your blog I’ve discovered the things that I struggle with from time to time, are less and less my own and more common than I previously thought possible. I think most of your readers would agree they appreciate your writing on subjects that are uncomfortable, and how beautifully you give a poignant view of real life matters.
Thank you for standing at the edge and sharing your experience with the world!
Dawn´s last blog ..The Beauty of Unity
Well, that almost made me cry too. What is it with you lately?!
Thank you so much Dawn and right back at ya…I have learned so much from you too, especially that I am “not the only one…” just like you said. Happy New Year!
Happy New Year to you too, Cyndi. Was it really just this year that you won that trip to Hershey? That almost convinces me that there is a higher power in the universe–that allowed you that precious time with Gina.
I’ve learned so much from you and my other blogging friends. I hope none of us gets too busy to quit sharing anytime soon!
I know, it’s still shocking to me that it was only 7 months ago that we went to PA. All the planets aligned on that one…I couldn’t go on my solo trip because I couldn’t afford to spend the money, we won that trip and she was healthy enough to go.
I’ve learned a lot from you all too…speaking for myself, I’m not going anywhere! And I hope none of you do either. Happy New Year!
CHEERS Cyndi!
When this post first showed up in my Google Reader, I started reading but had to turn away because I had not yet finished my post yet. I loved the way you reviewed the highlights of each month I was afraid I would steal you idea! LOL!
Thank you for sharing a part of your year with me. You have offered words of wisdom and a good slap across the head when needed!!!!
Here’s to the new year!!!
Tammy´s last blog ..The last “Cheers” of the 2009!
And thank you too Tammy! Although I don’t recall any slaps across the head…I do apologize.
Speaking of that…it is taking everything in me to not respond to a recent comment from you know who on your blog.
There was one post or maybe it was a tweet that basically was “Shit or get off the pot” but I can’t remember specifically…I loved it!!!!
I know what you mean about the comment. I nearly deleted it, because I know alcohol must have been invovled, but I decided a long time ago to let comments be seen and heard.
I feel content to know that I am no longer affected/effected (need to read that article) by it anymore. I am finally over it and it FEELS GOOD!
Tammy´s last blog ..The last “Cheers” of the 2009!
I remember now, it was a tweet! You had been talking about writing a post and I was impatiently waiting because it had been a while. Sorry.
I’m glad to hear you are over that nonsense. I don’t feel as hostile about the absurd comment now. You go girl!
ok i am glad you said something about that comment on tammy’s blog! everytime i read something from her i am like wtf? i can’t believe she comments and writes that stuff. i was wondering how it affected you tammy and wanted to ask but didn’t want her to read it. there. glad it was said. glad you are not affected. it still makes me kinda want to kick her ass though…
Consuella – I appreciate the ass kicking sentiment..ahahah…the best part is, I know I am over it/her because I no longer have extreme emotions of anger or sadness. She is simply a part of my HERstory now. ;o)
Tammy´s last blog ..The last “Cheers” of the 2009!
Wow. What a year! I’m so grateful for you that you got to go on your trip with Gina. What a blessing! And I love the yearly blog recap idea. Very cool!
Jessica´s last blog ..Drinkin’ & Bloggin’….
Happy New Year Cyndi. Pretty good recap of the year, for a moment i stopped reading and started thinking about mine too. Good going for me so far, wishing you all the goodness and cheer in 2010.
swapna´s last blog ..she
Happy new year to you too!
Happy New Year! You know, I’ve never taken the time to look back over my old posts. Weird, eh? Your post has inspired me to do so – just to see where my head was at way back and to see how my blog has changed. It is like a journal except that it is open to the world. I wish that I had started earlier.
All the best to you in 2010!