Page 271: The Art of Reinvesting in Myself

Me, three years ago

 Three years ago, I took an interest in myself and decided to make improvements.

I went to the dentist and instead of him doing constant extractions, I asked him to repair my teeth. At the time, I thought that they were in such disrepair that they would all need to be removed. However, my dentist gave me fillings and allowed me to smile fully, as you can see in the picture above. I took some work but I paid my dental insurance premiums and did the work of getting to my appointments and letting Dr. Meinhardt work his magic.

After a huge fight with my mom that left us barely talking to one another and made me a wreck during the summer of 2012, I decided to start going to therapy. I did the work of going every week and being able to talk through all of my problems as well as allowing myself to take the proper medication to help my anxiety. I had thought that therapy was not for me after two horrible instances with doctors who either misdiagnosed me with every mental illness in the book or thought that I didn't take therapy seriously. I was able to express myself better without ranting on my blog or bottling it all up.

Despite all the things I still needed to work on like my marriage, money skills and the fact that I had no solid job, I was really proud that I had fixed my teeth and started to go to therapy and that made a huge difference.

A year later, I hit a major hurdle. I went into a self-imposed seclusion. I left school. I stopped going to the dentist. When my therapist from the year before had begun a new rotation and I had to see a new therapist, I started to lapse until I just wasn't going anymore. I barely went to the doctor and put off my hand surgery until September of that year. I got a new job in November, so I put my everything into that. Then, I didn't have time to go to therapy or to the dentist. My marriage had even gone from the sporadic visit from Tym to speaking solely on the telephone sporadically until he died last year.

For the most part, I spent the last months of 2014 working, grieving and spending money. I saw a therapist sporadically until he decided that he would not support my extended medical leave. I fired him promptly and didn't see anyone else until I saw a therapist once earlier this year. I never saw him again.

Despite the joy I feel that I'm in school and I'm studying something really important to me, I really feel...unhealthy (for lack of a better word).

My teeth have gone into disrepair again. I have more weight than my frame can handle and I now have to take blood pressure medication. I'm crying more than I did before Tym's death and probably during my grieving phase. When I'm at school; I suck back Wild Cherry Pepsi like it's water and my stomach has a hard time tolerating caffeine. My diet is nearly as healthy as I would like it to be and that's really disappointing because I really enjoy cooking and I am a great cook.

Mentally, I don't feel well at all. I'm not sleeping well. I've been having more panic attacks. I don't write nearly enough so I'm not really expressing myself that way. I hide away in my disheveled bedroom with the lights either dimmed or off, though my lights are so dimmed that I would be better off not having it on at all. I don't even listen to my music as much as I used to. I almost always feel trapped and powerless and incompetent. The dosages of my medication has increased instead of decreased.

It's really obvious that shit needs to change.

After getting myself this low, it feels pretty impossible to even think about where to begin but I guess that I'm acknowledging that there is a problem and I want to change it is a pretty big step. I know that there is a huge chance that Tym's death is part of why I've let myself deteriorate, but I don't want that to become an excuse that I'm using five or ten years down the line. It bugs the hell out of me that I am still grieving and it's only been a little over a year (and I know that it will take time, but I'm not a patient person).

I'm going to make some changes, though. If I could do it at 27, and that was a good year out of a shitty decade, I can do it at 30. My hope is that I won't have to do it again at 33 or 43 or ever because starting over all the time sucks. Now, though, I'm going to do it because I need to. I may not always want to, but I need to.

I'll start with therapy again, because I have a plan with that. I have an appointment in November and I'm going to go, whether I have a job or not, because I need my mental health to be in the best optimal condition. I'm going to make better choices with my diet, in hopes that I'll start cooking again soon. I have a slow cooker and I love that thing so much, so I definitely plan on using it again. I'm going to purchase dental insurance again because I really need to get my teeth worked on again and I like having wonderful front teeth or a nice set of teeth that I can flash when I smile.

I think if I can start with these things, everything else will fall into place. Great things are not easy things but they're necessary. I'm necessary.

Page 247: This Passion Thing

I'm a firm believer that when someone finds their passion, he or she will start seeing life differently. Suddenly, everything in their lives mean nothing until that moment when they find their passion and start following it. Their lives have indelibly changed.

Of course, that's how I thought it went for people who found their passion. I had yet to find mine.

I thought it was writing for a good long while. I really did. I felt like I could write my way through life and I would be complete. Then, I finished my book last year and there was a period in which I wondered what was next. That didn't last long, though, because my husband died and I was totally consumed with other things. Writing didn't feel like a passion anymore, though.

I thought that teaching was my passion as well. I'm not completely convinced that it's not, though. I still really enjoy the idea of teaching children and/or teenagers how to be productive members of society and possible scholars. I feel like I can do that and I would be fulfilled, but I don't know if I'm as passionate about it as I once was. I think part of it was simply projecting because I want to be a mom. Being a mom is always a passion for me, but not one that I will find any time soon.

For lack of a better sentiment, I was passionless. I didn't have a passion for anything.

Then, I started classes this semester.

I wasn't looking for anything that would make me all full of passion and want me to throw my ring in anything, but I did want this semester to mean something much different from the previous two semesters felt. I was looking to prove that I was happy to attend my dream school and that my dead person's money was being put to good use. So, I decided to take a Conflict Resolution class because I once said that I wanted to be good at that. I took a Global Studies class because I was interested in the major. I wanted to learn something before my financial aid ran out. Some. Thing.

Surprisingly, it was not my Global Studies class that made me feel passionate, although I'm learning a lot. I found my passion in my Conflict Resolution course. I felt like this was something I could talk about all day. When my teacher mentioned that she was getting her Master's in Sustainable Peace Building, my eyes glittered like I was looking at something sparkly. I found a part of a calling that I could get on board with, something I could do for the rest of my life.

On October 1st, I am going to officially change my major to Global Security.

I still write. It's not as much as it was when I was a teen or even when I was in my 20s, that shitty decade. I plan to keep working on my book and maybe age, and experience, will help me make it even better than it currently is. As for teaching, maybe I'll teach a new generation about Conflict Resolution and Peace Studies while I'm getting my Master's.

I hope to work for the Federal Government when I'm done with college. I think I would be a good asset to them. I would love to work at the United Nations or NATO, wherever I can make the biggest impact in helping the world become a little more peaceful. Who knows? I could end up becoming the first Black Female President. That would be cool.

Page 241: To the Kid Who Wore Jeans on Her Wedding Day

On this day, seven years ago, I got married. I was 23, naïve and in love. I'd never been in love like that before, so getting married was the next step.

It was a big step for me. I'd never planned on getting married but there I was, in the basement of a courthouse, saying "I Do," and it was perfect. The day, though gray and dreary, was perfect. I don't know how, but I managed to find someone just as weird (if not weirder) as I was. I think he was weirder, though.

Tym introduced me to a lot of things and despite our ups and downs, he was my best friends and one of my biggest advocates. There was one time when I accidentally dropped out of my Spanish class and he actually became indignant when I told him that I wasn't sure that the teacher would let me back in, despite the fact that I was passing. He kept me afloat many times and I'd like to think that I kept him afloat as well. He stopped going to Chicago to get his taxes done because I was good at it.

When he went back home, I was devastated. I didn't know how I would get over it. I was mad at him and at myself because I felt like I had failed and I didn't want a failed marriage like Ross on Friends. We went through so much that I was forced to grow up. I matured so much in such a little time because I had no choice. He made me so happy but he also made me so sad.

I always told myself that we just needed to get to five years. If we got to our fifth anniversary, we would be fine. That's what I believed and when we did, I felt successful. I managed a long distance marriage for five years and that felt like a victory. Then, he was gone for good and yet, I still acknowledge my marriage.

I told my mother last month that I won't talk about him anymore and that I will move forward with my life, but he's still there. He's still in my heart and my mind, despite his death. Sometimes, I wonder if I should keep talking about him so I can grieve properly, but it's devastating to relive that day over and over. It's hard to be labeled "widow" even though I'm only 30. When my dad died, my mom was nearly in her 50s. She'd spent almost 30 years with him, married him and had his children. I don't have any children, even though it's for the best right now. All I have of him is some of his clothes and some of his belongings, as well as memories.

I still feel successful. I did what I was supposed to do and I can look back fondly at our great moments. I'm embarrassed of our bad moments, but they were natural. I don't know how many people will experience love like the love I had, but I hope they do because it'll keep them going. It keeps me going. So, here's to seven years. It was well earned.

Page 114: Getting Out of the Way

Yesterday, I realized that I've gotten in my way a lot more than I thought and it isn't in a good way.  If you were to ask me how I was two weeks ago, I would tell you that I'm fine. Only now have I realized that I have been lying.

I've mentioned in a previous blog post that all I wanted was to be normal again, so I don't need to rehash any of that. However, I think it's time that I get it through my head that the old normal is never coming back. Returning to who I was last summer is not going to happen. Forcing myself into that corner is just making my grief worse and unbearable.

I watched my normal favorite television show last night and as I was watching it, getting past the huge spoiler that everyone probably knows now, I started to sympathize with the character's surviving spouse a little too much. When the police were at her door and told her that there had been an accident, I thought of my very own phone call from the police and them telling me that there had been an accident. Maybe I should be lucky that Tym was dead at the site, but the conversation about how the organs weren't viable for donation was one that I also had. It still angers me when people tell me that they're sorry for my loss. The surviving character's loss was like my loss was happening again and the pain in my chest feels even worse than it did back in July.

I was told by my sister and my mother that I needed to remember how far I've come, but I think that's unfair to them and to me. I'm forcing myself not to grieve. I'm forcing myself to separate from what happened. I'm forcing myself to pretend that I can move on with my life because I'm now 30 and I need to move on with my life. Right?

I need to take a step back and really work on reconstructing my life instead of just saying that I am or planning it halfheartedly. Blogging and social media isn't really tools for getting it together, so I'm taking a step back from that as well. I won't be gone forever but while I'm gone, I'm going to finally grieve my husband.

Page 109: Life is an Ongoing Train

When I started this blog, I couldn't bear to spend one day away from it. I guess you could call it separation anxiety but because it was so new, I felt like I had to blog almost every night. I ended up with about 800 posts in a span of maybe two years. I think that's right.

I had to tell myself that it was okay if I missed a couple of days of not blogging. I had to train myself not to freak out if I missed a week or so. I couldn't take a blog break to save my life. Then, life got really busy and I had to begin considering hanging this blog up because I didn't have any time or any stories to tell because I was just working and sleeping. Tym's death inadvertently reinvigorated my return to this space. Even if I didn't want to blog, I needed to let my feelings out like I did when I started posting.

I've spent most of last week going to the store or sleeping on the floor because I have a slight addiction to air beds and my knee killed my last one, but life has not been boring. I finally filed my taxes (and owed money, which is so unfair). I did a phone interview that has led with me to have a Skype interview with a couple of executives in Australia this upcoming Wednesday evening (which will be Thursday morning there). I've enrolled in college classes for this Summer.  I even played Monopoly on my PlayStation 3. I've also been thinking about even bigger things, like enrolling for classes for the fall semester and a possible solo business venture as well as planning for the next year, five years and ten years.

Life hasn't stopped here. Sometimes, I wish life would halt but that has yet to happen. God doesn't bless the mess. Therefore, I deal with the struggle, learn from the struggle and go from there. That is the only way I am able to keep going and keep an ounce of sanity in what seems hectic to me.  That's the way I can function, because life doesn't stop. I just have to move with it.

Page 102: Still Getting There

For the past nine months, if you didn't know, I've been in a state of recovery. My husband, who I was living apart from, was killed in a road accident back in July. I've jostled with crying and being angry and spending the first week or so in a fog, trying to figure out when I should return to work and why it all sounded like the dumbest thing in the world. I thought it would be over quickly, just like I thought I got over my father's death at 21. It wasn't.

The biggest difference between my father's death and my husband's death was this: I was shielded the first time. My mom and my sister (mostly my sister) dealt with the funeral and all that good stuff. Then, life just kept coming so the grief process didn't last that long to me. Now, it feels like forever. I've dealt with the cremation, autopsy reports, what to donate to other people and science, death certificates and life insurance things as well as trying to work on things like getting back into school and trying to keep my job and medical leave. It sounds really boring but when you've never had to do it, it really drains the life out of you.

Now, I laugh more than I cry and the sun is still marvelous to look at, but I'm still not where I want to be. I saw a psychotherapist for a time after my husband's death and one of the first things I told him was that I wanted to be normal again. I'm still working towards that goal. A lot of times, I feel like I'm getting there or I'm already there. Other times, it feels like I'm in a maze I'm never going to get out of.

I keep expecting it to be like a movie, where I travel somewhere and meet quirky characters who will tell me about my husband's secret history and I either fall for someone new or leave with a renewed sense of purpose. I imagine the montage of me working hard and doing things that make me feel better and guys, it is not that at all. Instead, it's feeling depressed and sobbing for over 15 minutes while Sia's Elastic Heart played over and over (don't ask). Sometimes, it's watching a horror movie that ends ridiculously and then wanting to watch something that would give you a visceral reaction. Other times, it's being so angry that you want to grab a golf club and start bashing some windows in.

I'm not where I want to be, and I want to be there so badly. I'm going to have to let go any expectations I have of snapping my fingers and being okay in an instant. It's not easy but it's the least destructive option I have right now.

Page 90: Five Years and Counting

Today marks the fifth anniversary of my blog. Normally, there would be some big giveaway from a cadre of sponsors or other bloggers, but I don't have any of that here. The only thing I have to give is the story of how this space of mine was first created.

I had created many blogs before this one, and none of them stuck. I had trouble writing about my life, even in journals, so the blogs never stuck. I created this blog, previously called The Splendid Life, to attract the attention of another blogger. She'd written a post about the comforts of home, so I jumped on that and wrote about the things that reminded me of the comforts of home. In my second blog post, I wrote about returning to the high school I had left when I was 15. The next few posts were about money, my living situation and the qualities I wanted in a husband, if I decided to get remarried.

In 2010, my life went through a huge upheaval. My husband and I officially separated and I moved back in with my mom. I had turned 25 and later experienced panic attacks almost every night. I was part of a Twitter community that was full of the wrong people. I was on my way to academic suspension because I was not doing any work in school. I was living on unemployment during the year that the government couldn't decide on whether they wanted to issue extensions. I was literally living check to check and still not making ends meet. I was miserable and had very little support.

Most of my blog content was written that summer.  I had moved from Blogger to WordPress with a new name, Le Rive De Mon Vie. I'd made my first Twitter enemies and was accused of being a stalker, which led me to quit Twitter. Not being on social media propelled me to write more on my blog and before I knew, I wrote about going to the library and my return to school as a student on academic probation, as well as life in general. I started taking more photos. I met my first blog friends and started getting comments. When Autumn came, I was so used to blogging that I didn't want to stop doing it.

It was during that Autumn that I started writing about my marital woes. See, my husband and I were separated but we still saw each other as if we were just in a long distance relationship. Still, there were troubles and I was writing about it. I would never recommend a first-time blogger to get that confessional now because whoa, but I was an idiot and times were different then. There was not much that I kept away from my blog and being ridiculously open was something that I felt was good for me. I didn't hold back, but I finally learned balance. Things were going so well, I returned to Twitter and found a wonderful blogging community of peers. It was wonderful.

By the end of 2010, I started reading more and bought enough books to create my very first blog feature. It was called Book A.D.D and I loved writing that feature. I wrote at 9 pm on a daily basis because I had so much good and bad going on in my life. I poured myself into this blog, but changed the name of my blog almost as often as I changed the themes. This blog kept my mind from running a million miles a minute and it also allowed me to work on something that I had never done before.

Fast forward to now, 2015. I've just turned 30 years old. My marriage had its ups and downs until I became a widow last year. I did a short stint at my dream school earlier this year but will return this Autumn. I still have the Book A.D.D feature but it's on my writing blog. I continue to be friends with some of the people I befriended during my return to Twitter. Thanks to this blog and Twitter, I had the privilege to meet some really awesome bloggers. I think I'm also going to return to VEDA this summer, which is Vlog Every Day in August.

This space is five years old, but I feel like there is still so much I want to write about. My life is always evolving and I want to record all of my progress here. There is no other place I could imagine writing these things down. This blog is my virtual home and always will be.

Page 88: Embracing the Unknown

[caption id="attachment_18103" align="aligncenter" width="361"] Taken from the box that carried my mug from Fringe Studio[/caption]

It feels like a lot of things in my life are in the air, even though that is not really the case. I haven't returned to work and I've been actively looking and applying for new positions. I haven't moved out of my current place of residence, and I'm slightly annoyed by that because I feel like I should have either decided about moving or not moving by now. Also, I want stuff. I want lots of stuff that will kill my current savings. I don't want to do that, so I'm waiting to see what happens with work and I'm annoyed by that as well. Overall, I think I'm tired of waiting. My patience did not return when I turned 30 last week.

I've made good work with distracting myself from being impatient. Last week felt super productive for me because I branched out and started talking about my creative process. Talking about my creative process is rare for me because I'm all but forthcoming about my writing. I can't blog consistently about my writing because it feels forced. It was nice discussing my creative process, though, and I found myself with like-minded people. I don't mention it often, but I am always in a search for like-minded people and during the chats I had on Twitter on Thursday, I found some of my people.

Finding some of my people and discussing my creative process with them sparked something else in me. I decided to enter something that I've never done before because I never had the confidence to do it. I've decided to run with it because I have nothing to really lose and everything to gain.

In that vein, I started to feel like I should run with doing all the things I love again. I've been itching to cook and write and blog like I used to as well as think about writing. Thinking about writing is always the motivation for me to actually write, so this is a good thing. I'm grateful to have savings in the bank so not working is something I don't need to exasperate my anxiety over, but I am a person who needs to always be doing. It doesn't matter if it's going somewhere or just thinking really hard. I have to always be active in some way, shape or form.

Since things in my life feel like they're up in the air, I have embraced it because I have so many things to keep myself busy with until things even themselves out. I've even broke out my PlayStation 2 and my PlayStation 3 in case I'm too tired to work on anything else, like writing. I feel better than I have in a long time because I have so many things to preoccupy myself with.

What do you do when things feel uncertain?

Page 86: Design of a Decade

As of today, I've been 30 years old for a week. It's been a good week and I think I'm actually happier than I was at the hotel. To me, that reinforces that room service and a pool is not always what you need, only what you want.

As of late, I've been on an organizing kick. I've organized some parts of my room, paperwork and I started thinking about things I want to do in my 30s. It probably sounds very ridiculous to begin to plan out a whole decade, especially since things are going to happen the way they happen, but I feel like I'm going to get along better this way instead of flying by the seat of my pants like I did in my 20s.

I'm calling this plan "Design of a Decade" and as of this moment, it's a list of goals I want to complete in this decade. It's organized by things I want to learn, events and places I want to travel to and total life goals. I also plan to do my best to record my progress and the goals I've achieved throughout this blog, even though blogs may not even exist in the next 10 years.

This started out as a list on the Notes app of my phone. I was having a conversation on Twitter with my friend, Marissa, about swing dancing when I realized that swing dancing was something I wanted to learn. I put it on a list along with some other things I wanted to learn, like how to swim. It wasn't long before the list started to expand and there were more things I wanted to do besides learning new skills.

A couple of days ago, I added that I wanted to learn how to change a flat tire and fix a car because I feel like I need to know how to do that. I don't want to wait on a man or someone else to fix my car when it needs to be fixed. I don't have the patience for that when I can take a couple of classes or so and learn how to do it myself. To this extent, I've also put on my list that I am going to face my fears. There's not that many now but if I can face them and get some new fears, I'll be happy. There's one fear, though, that is not on the list. It's not there because I don't know how to face it. That fear has two parts and facing it is going to have to happen naturally.

The list has me excited for what's to come. I may take the rest of this year off as a "gap year," so I can get other things together. I'm so pumped, though. This may be my best decade yet.

Page 84: Some Ramblings

Today, I bought a book full of envelopes for my future child/ren. Being a mother has been on my mind since I was a pre-teen and it's the only thing I've never backed up on. The number of children has changed. I once wanted six, just like my grandmothers had, but I realized how much work that would be. I reduced the number to four, two boys and two girls. That's the number I stay with for the most part but I would be happy if God gave me one boy and one girl. I don't want to just stop at one because I'm the middle child and I know the pros and cons of having siblings. I've seen what it was like for my mom to raise three of us and even though it was hard, I never hated my childhood.

In terms of the book of envelopes, I have to figure out just how many letters I'm going to write and who I'm going to write them for. I would like to write letters to my firstborn, but I wouldn't want to leave any later children out, no matter how I have them.

I've looked at wedding photos and even though it hasn't been a year since Tym died, I'm slowly coming to a realization that I would like to get married again. My mom was always married to my father and when he died, that was it. However, she had three children that were 18 and older and she was in her late 40s. She had lived her life and if she were to remarry now, I think I would support it and her new husband as long as she was happy. I'm not planning on getting married tomorrow, but it would be nice to do maybe five years down the line. It would give me a chance to have the wedding I never had and have the marriage and relationship I never knew I wanted until I was married.

I want a Godly man. I want someone who believes, loves and fears God as much as I do. I also want a homebody. I want someone who is satisfied with sitting and reading with me or just watching television and drinking hot chocolate. I want someone who loves to cook and loves when I cook. I want someone who will love our children as much as I do. I want someone who has a kind sense of humor and is full of kindness and joy and contentment. I want a husband that works hard at everything he does but will appreciate that I also work hard at everything I do. I know that God has that man for me somewhere and after some time, I will be so happy when we meet.

Suddenly, I've gotten back into cooking. I think that this is because I've used my DSLR camera more. Why those two are interconnecting, I'm not sure but I have plenty of cookbooks to work from.

Speaking of books, I returned a number of Kindle books to Amazon yesterday because I had a lot of them in hard copy form. The amount I got back was astonishing. It wasn't because Amazon was being kind enough to do it, though. I was astonished because I actually spent a horrific amount of money on Kindle books. After that happened, I felt bad and set out to purge unnecessary things from my possession because it was ridiculous (nearly quadruple digits) that I had spent that much on books that I hadn't even read. Tomorrow, I'm getting rid of some movies and television shows I own on DVD and Blu-ray.

Update: Still have not done this...

Page 82: Home is Where The Heart Is

Yesterday, I woke up at seven in the morning to check out from the hotel and come home. Even though I had a lot of fun just lumping around in my room at the Pfister, I really missed being home. I was so excited to return home, I didn't get much sleep the night before. At the same time, I worried.

I have a history of returning home after being away for an extended period and being miserable. This was the case when I returned home from my ten-day road trip with my father and thinking that I wish I was back there. This was also a bit of the case when I came home from Florida. I saw my house in a whole new light and that light was telling me that my house was dirty and my family hadn't changed and it wasn't good enough. Naturally, this was my fear when I checked out yesterday.

I am glad to say that my fear was just fear. When I came home, I was so happy. I was happy to be near my house. I was happy to be in my neighborhood. I was happy to be with my mom. I was happy in general. Despite my lack of sleep, I was ecstatic being home. I even went to Target and was happier when I returned home. I'm still on this high of being home.

I feel safe there and of course, I love hanging out with my mom. She is my shelter in a storm and I don't think we've ever been as close as we are now. I missed all the idiosyncrasies of my home and had no regrets being back. My room is still a danger zone, but I managed to get it together enough to sleep the best I've slept in about three days on my bed. I basked in my cable-less television, played my PS2 for the first time in forever and danced.

I think this is growth. I've finally decided that my heart is in simpler things and the simplest of all is having a home and being there. I've also come to the conclusion that I don't think I'm as ready to live by myself as I thought I was, especially after Tym, but I'm okay with that. My home is full of joy and laughter and God above all else. My house does not look like a five-star hotel room, but that's fine because it's my home and my home is lived in.

It's where my heart is.

Page 80: The Game Plan

It's nice to not have a countdown going in parentheses. It was great but I'm glad not to have to do that anymore.

I said in my post yesterday that I don't have any wishes this year and I am sticking to that. This time away from home has made me realize that I don't need to travel as much as I thought I did. I told my sister earlier that this staycation was wonderful, but I'm ready to go home and spend time with my family. There's really no place like home, not even an extravagant hotel with a pool on the 23rd floor with panoramic views of downtown.

I'm really adamant about not putting off school again. I feel really raw about dropping and not loving my classes. I feel raw about not having the time to really spend time on campus because I had to work. I feel really raw that I just jumped into a major without really giving it all I had. I'm disappointed and raw and I have to spend more money to keep going. It sucks! It sucks.

I'm going back in the fall, when I can partake in school shopping and not feel like an idiot. I'm going to major in _____.

Gotcha!

I'm not going to divulge in my major until my semester's over, or at least until I get through midterms. What I will say is that it's my first intended major when I started college, not when I was a teenager. I've mentioned it once before, but I don't know if it's in any of my earlier posts here. I will do a whole post about it when my midterms get closer, or the semester ends.

I'm not saying what my major is because I've actually found that I don't go through with things when I talk about it. Also, I feel like a huge failure when I don't go through with what I had originally planned. I basically add pressure by talking out my ass and I don't want to do that this time around.

I'm also saying goodbye to my job. I wish I could stay and I wish things could go back to the way that they were, but that's not going to happen so I'm not going to try. I learned so many things there and those skills will come in handy with my new job, whatever it will be.

Going back to my original statement of deciding not to make any wishes for this year, I plan to go all in with everything I am setting out to do. I miss my contentment and while I don't want the same contentment I had at 29, I think establishing a new kind of contentment will be great and worthwhile.

Page 79: Hello, 30

[caption id="attachment_18102" align="aligncenter" width="388"] My birthday cake, chocolate with raspberry coulis and raspberries. Balanced it out with my favorite fruit.[/caption]

I thought that today was going to be hell. I was on the way to being miserable, even after all the hope I had for this day. Then, something changed.

I went to sleep after midnight and despite all the fanfare I've been working with for my birthday, I felt like a shrinking violet that was completely and utterly alone. All I wanted to do was go home, especially after finding messages that I had never gotten shortly after Tym's death. It was unexpected and a little sad but I went to sleep and then, I did not want to wake up.

My sister actually brought me out of my funk. She had spent the night at her place so she came back in the morning and with her return, I couldn't go back to sleep. She insisted on watching TV and opening the curtains and eating. I had no choice but to eat with her. Then, we watched a movie that made me laugh. Then, I got dressed and went home.

When I got home, I spent time with my mom and opened my gifts from my surrogate sister, Tina. I was laughing and happy the entire time. By the time I was done, I so happy and I declared that this was the best day ever.

I don't have any wishes for the year. If I can keep going in the halfway normal way that I am going now, I'll be fine. If things could get better, I'm all for that. I just want the joy and love that I have now. That's the best gift I could get.