Wednesday, January 1, 2014

2013... A Year of Discovery

I was looking back through my posts for the year, I don't usually go back and read anything and most times I forget what I write about.  Let's be honest I forget most of what I've done in the last few months.  So if you read often and I repeat myself....well, that's why. Overall this was a really good year.  Yes there have been hard times and things that have happened that weren't great.  I still deal with many of the same issues I've always had to deal with.  Work, money, kids, sick husband, doctors appointments, paying for prescriptions, and bills....and on and on and on....  I can either let it all weigh me down or I can pull up my big girl pants and figure out how to make it all work.  This was a year of making things work.  It was a year of making big decisions, letting things go, forgiving myself, forgiving my husband, realizing it's ok to admit I do kind of love him....because I do, in a way I'm not sure I can explain, and overall finding balance, peace, really real happiness.  Realizing that my life doesn't have to be perfect, or close to perfect and sometimes really far from perfect....for me to keep that balance, and be OK.  I still have days of overwhelming stress, and not very pretty moments.  Days of very little sleep and too many things happening at once.  Days that I say to heck with everything.  I don't focus on them and let them take over my life.  I have a bad day, or two....and move on.  I can honestly say I am happy with who I am, probably for the first time ever in my life.  I have no resolutions for this new year.  I believe we always should be learning and growing and improving on who we are.  I don't want to start the year off with a list of things I intend to do and then feel bad at the end of the year if I didn't accomplish them.  I would rather sit down at the end of the year and look back at the things I learned, and accomplished, because I was simply living life. In the past I was a list maker, and it didn't get me very far.  Maybe it works for other people, it just doesn't for me. This year I lost 55 pounds and I've managed to keep that weight off, even through the stress of the holidays.  This year in my journey of discovery I finally decided what I want to do when I grow up, well at least what I plan on going back to school to study.  Originally when I decided I was going to go back to school, I thought I would go into nursing. I could really do this....and I would do very well, but my heart isn't there.  The past month I've been pulled in a different direction.  When I was in college....just a few years ago ;)..... I was studying Psychology.  I have loved taking these classes ever since I was a senior in high school and I was in my very first class. (I think it was my senior year...oh my memory).   The problem was, I wasn't serious about school, and I was wasting time until I got married and could live happily ever after.  Really what it was, was that I didn't know what I wanted to do, and I got into the upper level classes and I felt like I didn't have enough life experience to be there.  Every person that I came across in those classes had major things that they had experienced, and I sat in a class one day thinking...."I'm not messed up enough to be in this class, " (I seriously remember thinking that), and I dropped it.   Now that I look back, it was kind of like the people who were in there, were there for therapy, looking for their own answers.   I'm not going back to school to study Psychology again for therapy....good grief that would be stupid. I'm going back to study something I love, and to figure out what I can do with a Psychology degree and have a career that will make me happy.  I'm fine with my job, I'll work there while I go to school, because let's face it, this is going to take a while.  But, I don't want to work where I do for the rest of my life....I want to find something to do that I love.  This year I had my oldest child move out.  While our relationship is a little rocky, we are speaking, and he is learning life lessons on his own.  He needed to.  He's always been very independent and I have no doubt that he will be just fine.  Man there was just a lot that was packed into this year, but overall it was good.....really good. 

I also had fun things that I discovered this year too.   I listen to a lot of books while I'm at work.  I love getting suggestions, but, I can only listen to what is available at the library, which doesn't have everything, and I hate waiting on lists to check something out if they have something that I want to read that is really popular.  Every once in a while I get lucky, and I find one that I've always wanted to read, or I find one I've never heard of that I love.  I sometimes listen to anywhere from 2 to 5 books in a week, depending on the length of the book. There are too many to remember that I like, but I have 8 that have stuck in my mind from this year for one reason or another that I love.  I've loved them all equally. 

1. Life of Pi  by Yann Martel
2. The Five People You Meet In Heaven by Mitch Albom
3. The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
4. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
5. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
6. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
7. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
8. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (Ok not the first time I read it, but the last time was in high school)


And then these things that I found that I can't live without.....seriously I don't think I can live without them.  My hair is baby fine, and straighter than straight. Without a perm (and I'm never doing that ever again), my hair doesn't really hold any kind of curl, and it can be full of static....which is awesome, having hair stuck to my face.  And it likes to fall out....everywhere. I went for years putting my hair in a pony tail because I couldn't find anything that worked the way I needed it to.  I can wear my hair down now with almost no hairspray and I'm not finding strands of hair everywhere anymore. I still pull it back in a ponytail sometime during my day/night but, I like it up.  It's still straight and I can't style it much, but I like it better.  Eyelashes that don't like to stay curled?  Cover girl  24 hour lash blast....seriously. Burt's Bees, because I just love this stuff, and the almond milk beeswax hand creme....awesome on my hands that get really dry and cracked and hurt during the winter....not this winter.



And that's my year.... and we'll just have to see what happens in 2014. 

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