review 2007: how did I do?

...it’s over, let it go. Oh, what a year that was. That was the year that was.

^{I wonder if anyone else on 43-things can remember the ancient TV show called “That Was the Week That Was”? Now I’m really dating myself. :)}

Tonight I’ll tuck you in and wish you sweet dreams. You were a good year, full of healing, love, awareness, adventure, and first times. I am overwhelmingly grateful to have lived to see a year such as you.

-Made a lot of drunken mistakes. Thought I had learned from them. Repeated one in the last week of 2007. Yikes.

-Made some friends. Lost more. Not a bad thing. Want to make some new ones next year.

-Treated my education as a joke. This has to change. [stop going out every night]

-Changed appearance somewhat. Radical changes lie ahead.

-Blew all my savings. Start again this January..

Overall a lotta bad shit went down. Not really gonna go into it. Relationships were horrifically unsatisfactory. My fault?

I have never been so determined to change. And what I want to do is becoming clearer all the time.

• I lack faith in myself. Other people in my life have a much higher opinion of me than I do. This bears changing, and the key to change will come from kindness.

• I have been much more supportive of others than of myself. This, too, is something I am now working to change.

• I can assert myself without negative consequences.

• Sugar really is like a poison for me.

• I actually am capable of much more than I believe.

As a step towards reviewing 2007 this morning, I pulled a very old book off my bookshelf called “At A Journal Workshop.” I turned to one of the opening chapters which describes how to write an initial journal entry about “Where am I now in my life?” Here are the author’s recommendations based on his experiences of leading therapeutic journal workshops:

We begin by becoming quiet. Let us sit in silence for a moment and once again feel the movement of our lives. We are quietly bringing ourselves into harmony with the continuity of our life experiences.

This is so hard for me to do, because I’m an over-thinker and an over-analyzer. (And here I am judging myself, too.) But I tried it for awhile this morning. And all I’ve come up with so far is that 2007 is divided into two halves:

Maybe I’ll have to try some more feeling this weekend.

In the past few days I’ve been trying to remember what happened a year ago and was having trouble. Today I looked back in my journal. From what I can re-construct, I was wrapped up in confusion over my pending divorce, and my husband’s pending move, and even though I had told him that I had plans for Christmas, I actually spent the day alone, not wanting to face him or anyone else.

I think it’s called repression. Putting away the painful memories in off-line storage somewhere.

2007 included some nice adventures. Joseph, Sadie & I had a few good travel adventures. I tried to be more assertive with my own ideas when we travel, and it was a good thing to do. It’s easy for me to fall into the pattern of accommodating and adjusting to whoever I’m with. I usually think of this as a positive quality, because I can be content in most situations – but I realize now that it can be burdensome for the other person, too.

Non-travel adventures including starting up a periodic girls night out fun night, which in turn led to my new adventure in power vinyassa yoga that I’ve been going at. I also got my new bike for my birthday, which did not work out as planned. I’d envisioned lots of summer and autumn bike tours, but straight off I injured my foot, which is still healing. Hopefully in the spring I can try bike adventures again, this time with better shoes. Another adventure that was a huge success and which was totally my idea was getting everyone at work together for an after-work viewing of Michael Moore’s Sicko, followed by dinner. It was a perfect film for people who’ve mostly worked in the American health care industry to see together.

All in all, much of this year was approached from a spirit of adventure.

I think that is what I might pick as my title for 2007.

Where have I been, and where am I going?

At first glance, I failed miserably in this area of life. No paintings painted, very few journal pages filled, very little musical notes played, very little time spent in artistic pursuits. I do not feel good about this.

But. A tremendous amount of energy was put forth in creating the Alzheimer’s Center, which continues to be a work in progress. True, it’s not a work of art, but it is a creation, and I am an important collaborator. It may be that I need to reconsider the way I view creative acts.

This was a good year for my marriage. I was a supportive, loving wife. I was a good listener and a good hugger. I supported my husband in leaving a job that was poisoning his soul. He seems calmer now.