auld lang syne

The year 2009 is finally over.  My stars it was a hard one!  I’m very glad that it is over, as if tossing my 2009 calendar in the recycling somehow means all the ridiculous bullshit that it contained is gone or null.  I can dream… (Also, if you know me, I wouldn’t have disposed of the calendar; I have saved every single one for ages now.)

I have put a lot of work into myself, my burgeoning website, and… my son?  That’s about all I have to show for last year.

I might as well put it out there in the open: I began last year with a deathwish for myself.  As fervently as I felt and thought it, I knew at the same time that it was a sign that things were really bad.  Something would have to give.

The year prior, 2008, ended with a bang.  My upstairs neighbor began his reign of tyranny over my tympanum (and sleep, and quiet, and sanity).  My grandmother passed away just before Thanksgiving, the only family holiday really held sacred.  My eminent boyfriend broke up with me in a most inexcusably craven and grievous way.  My otherwise sustainable nanny job screeched to a halt, leaving me unemployed and not-that-temporarily unable to provide for myself and my son.

It was really too much for me to bear, despite surfeiting abuse, neglect, and loss for the better (or worse) part of my young life.  The entire year, 2009, was spent recovering, staggering forth from all that was noted above.  The recovery has not been in peace thus far, since there is of course this mystical, ominous recession skulking all around us, and there were certain unflattering aftershocks of 2008, which I care not to describe in detail, to withstand.  In fact, I am still weathering these aftershocks into 2010, and expect to well into 2011.

However much I wince at the cliché of new year’s resolutions, I am doing my best to seize the opportunity, the impression of a fresh start.  I have never entirely lost my optimism through all of this, though it has been bruised and scorned by circumstances beyond my control.

My ache for a partner seems to be at once an exercise in futility and an application of my greatest self-love and optimism.

That is all for now.