They write songs about it…

a note: some of these posts are backdated from another journal. Bear with me as I get my writing back into full swing…

…This past year will forever be known by myself, my family, my friends and my therapist as “The year Meg got her shit together, grew up and learned how to be herself.”

I have been thinking a lot about the past year and how change, open to it or not, happens at such a lightening fast rate you have no choice but to go along for the ride. Sometimes it is exhilerating, sometimes it is terrifying, sometimes you slow down long enough to think on all the little things you could have done to change the outcome and then you’re off and running again.

I didn’t think it was possible for me to feel like a “regular person”. And I thought that life was just supposed to be frustrating and hard with little glimpses of contentment. That love was a daily struggle and if it was to be worth it you had to fight and fit the other persons vision of you perfectly everyday to keep it. That my dreams and my goals could be put of indefinetly to ensure other people’s happiness. I thought that feeling crushingly overwhelmed by little things was normal. That keeping my true self careful in check was how people wanted me…I was wrong.

It is uncanny how we can convince ourselves that toxic situations we put ourselves in are perfectly adequate. I look back over the past year and I see myself shedding of the toxic layers that took me YEARS to accumulate. Before my divorce, before my gandmother’s deaths, before my acting out. The past year was difficult in the sense that I had to take stock of my life and finally say: “I’m sick, I need get help. I’m self-absorbed, I need to think of other people. I’m frustrated with my life, I need to re-evaluate the patterns I’m falling into.” And I did. And I haven’t looked back…

It was an overwhelming year. And this New Year’s, more than any before, deserved the tagline: “Maybe this year will be better than the last”. Earlier in the week Himself and I went out to breakfast with his parents and his sister and her boyfriend. We talked about where we had been each New Year’s Eve since 2000. It was so interesting to hear what they were doing and to think back on what I was doing, what I was thinking at each point. I have had mostly quiet New Years’ for the last 6 years. (Probably to make up for the partying I was doing year round), I even worked one year and came home after midnight. This year we went to church, went out for sushi with SisterJ and her boy, went to bed early, set the alarm for midnight and fell asleep, awaking only briefly to celebrate…and it was lovely. They all were. Looking back on all those memories makes me realize the one thing that has remained a constant in my life, my ability to make the best out of a situation. To find the joy in my life and hold tight to it. Even if it seems like there isn’t much there…because it’s always there.

Even with that knowledge, for a lot of people this will be remembered as the year I changed. Everything. My personality, my partner, my family, my job! And for a lot of people it will be remembered as the year they said goodbye to me. I know that I will remember it as the year I said goodbye to them. But I think that both sides know that it was better. It made both of us stronger and more ourselves. To be able to say: “This person you have become is not in my story, is not on my path, and so I bid you farewell” has been the greatest lesson I have learned.

That and how to cook steak. That was a good lesson.