December review

In December  I like to look back over the year that was. I usually write each January a list of things I hope to accomplish for the year, I reopened that list and took a peek to see how I did. I accomplished 5 of my 12 things on this year's list, and it's not over yet so I have time to do more.

This year has been a year of growth for sure. First and foremost it was a year where I survived as a widow, without Terry. I didn't throw myself off the bridge from grief and loneliness like I wanted to sometimes. But I didn't, instead I chose to survive. This is my biggest accomplishment this year. Being without him. Surviving without him to share the good and bad I experienced this year.

This year my son graduated with honors in his undergrad degree in chemistry A first for my children, hopefully not the last. The celebration at my cottage was one for the books and it was the first happiest thing about this year bar none.

I set off to PEI by myself to a week long photography workshop, I met new friends and I learned about my craft, I met some of my photography idols and I was graced with a mentor in the process. It was a true growth experience in many unexpected ways. The learning continues, even in the fact that I once again lost my desire to photograph afterward, this too has been a lesson for me. One that is okay now that I stopped fighting it and finding the meaning as to why. Sometimes there is no reason, no meaning it just is what it is and that is okay for now. If that alone was the lesson it's one I needed to learn. Because in the past I had to always find the meaning, like in some way that legitimizes whatever it is I am going through, but I learned sometimes there is just no reason. Full stop! My mentor helped me to see this. And that every picture does not have to cause that feeling of excitement when you see it on the viewfinder, that sometimes when you are farther along in your craft you don't experience this as much, it takes a lot more to get that. See the light, see the light on it, see the light within it.  Lesson learned.  I am looking for the light within it.

The last of my children left home this year, and I have an empty nest for the first time since 1983. It was not as bad as I thought it would be, yes I miss them, but I know this is the natural progression of things and the way it should and even needs to be. It was a transition I always thought I would go through with my love, that we would revel in the new found freedom of each other alone again like in the days when we were newly in love. But I transitioned alone, there might be many more transitions alone I will need to learn how to deal with. If this was the litmus test, I passed.

I built a cottage for myself, well let's be honest, I had it built for me. I made great strides in my serenity acre by the sea. It's a place that brings me mega amounts of peace and comfort and oneness with nature and the god of my understanding. All those feelings I felt with yoga and meditation (two things I have not been able to get back to this year) but that is okay too. I will get there. I have a huge deck on serenity acres over looking the ocean, a perfect place to meditate and do yoga, when the time is right. And that is okay too. Another lesson learned. I don't have to attain all my goals, I just have to keep striving toward them.

I gave up therapy this year, a full year not seeing one and I am just fine thank you very much. I have friends who are the best therapists in the world and they are free. I know what to do, I no longer need to tell a therapist I need to do it, I just need to do it. Like...forgive a little bit each day those old feelings that haunt me, like.. put the guilt in the back forty- plow it under - it serves no purpose anymore. If it surfaces deal. It will always surface despite my best efforts, but I can look it in the eye with a new understanding today. With a dose of self love. Like.. feel the grief when it surfaces, cry if you want to, let go of what is heavy if you need to it's okay to let it go, holding it just pulls me under. Like.. remember whenever you want to- it won't kill you to remember, it will hurt a little less each time. The day will come when the remembering is happy and doesn't hurt, even if it's not now, with this many years in- this many years from seeing and hearing him, one day it will come.

I took a foray into relationships with men this year. Although none worked out, that wasn't the point. Fuck that is freeing to know. I did learn a few very valuable lessons in this process, one being, that I can transfer the generosity I learned from my relationship with my husband to others. That I have many pearls to offer, that I can remain myself and be authentic- truly authentic in a relationship with others. The fact that those men chose to want it too much, abuse it, and not want it all doesn't matter. That is their lesson. What a lesson that was for me- that sometimes the lesson isn't mine it's someone else's. I can, despite it all, remain authentic and generous and myself. Another man may want it and recognize it someday, if not, I do. Lesson learned.

I need to clean my fridge again, it brings me back to last year around this time when I did that (and in between since then ha ha!) and I started writing about my journey in this blog. I cleaned out the old  with all the memories attached to the old bottles and condiments that Terry had bought and cooked with and how that felt then. How new and sad that was then, how it is so different now, how this journey just keeps on going and changing. Now all the stuff in my fridge is new- the connections I have with them are my own not his. I bought everything in there. Life this year has been like that, new stuff without him with no connection to him, just new memories and things and events. Soon the last gifts he gave me will be gone, the slippers he gave me on his last Christmas are wearing out, the hot rollers will give up the ghost soon too. But those are just things, things I grasped onto crying and attaching bittersweet memories to like a drowning women, fearful that if I didn't have them I would lose him again somehow. I don't feel that way anymore. I have memories that will never fade, I have lessons he taught me that I have internalized forever. This is hopeful, this doesn't end up wearing out or breaking.  I know this to be true, just like I know this grief won't break me. Just like I know new lessons await in the new year.