Gratitude – Page 3 – A Most Unreliable Narrator

Year in Review: 2015

fiercequote — Image courtesy of Dwell Beautiful

Dear Internet,
Here we are almost to the middle of January and I still have not written my end of year review. (Some may scoff at doing these things, but I like having a list of what I’ve done and where I’ve been as my memory is often terrible.)
2015 was not as bad as 2014, but it still wasn’t stellar. January saw me moving alone into my own apartment for the first time in six years (in which I was then living with my ex-husband), February saw the amping up of my job search. The #Teamharpy case was dismissed in March, my divorce came through in April. June was my birthday month. August, September, and October were the months I began selling writing pieces. In September, I moved to the cabin in Northern Michigan to close it down, ended up getting a terrible strain of the plague including a cold in my eye. TheBassist and I split in October, and that’s when I started writing in my paper diary. November was a pretty intense month: I moved back to Louisville, I started my “getting healthy” plan which is still in effect, and Thursday arrived. In December, I had second interviews with two institutions, of which I have only heard back from one. The tl;dr on that boiled down to: They absorbed the job back into existing staff, they are re-writing the description with the new duties and they want to make sure that person fit the description. But hey! If all of this had not happened, I would have been offered the position. Of course.
There was also criss-crossing across the U.S as I interviewed for jobs, a wedding, and an epic trip occurred where myself and Kristin drove to D.C. to see Angela Landsbury and I ended up adding a few more trips on that same week.
There was loves lost, friends gained, plans added and changed. It was not a stellar year but it had its moments.
So, 2016. What are my resolutions? On one hand I think making resolutions is bunk — we should be trying to be a better person throughout the year. On the other, having goals can keep you on track and can be added/changed/ditched as things change. I’m well versed how your life can change on a dime and you may never know what it will bring you.
Tada! My top five goals for 2016:

Get a job and get all the accouterments that go with said job (apartment, pay down student loans and credit card debt, so on and so forth).
Continue on with the healthy plan, which entails:
1. Continue changing eating habits (No sugar! No dairy! Less carbs!)
2. Quitting smoking (Again and again and again)
3. Continue with meditation (181 days straight!) and DBT
4. Continue exercising
Travel more. I’ve been to a zillion places and I want to be at a zillion more, but this time I want to absorb those places. I’ve been considering finally taking the plunge and road rally with MINI Takes The States, which is a cross-country tour with a pack of MINIs. I’ll probably start in Minneapolis and continue on to Atlanta, then back to wherever home is located.
Write more and not just in my paper journal. Write true, write what matters, write what you love. Selling a few pieces last year really bolstered my ego, but I know i can do better. I want to be better. I’d like to finally sell a fiction piece, get into the bare bones of writing and start up. My damned book still languishes and it might be trunked, but I want the love of saying, “This is a thing I have made and completed.” I’ve been knitting like a fiend lately and the feeling of accomplishment is brilliant. I don’t want it to ever end
Per the graphic above, Be Fierce (I know everyone says that, but we stop saying it and just live it?). And we can’t forget one of Mr. Neil Gaiman’s a yearly wish to us all:

Wherever you are in life, take chances. Be kind. Have compassion. Love hard and more, love bravely, love fierce. See and do more. Connect more. Be alive and discover the world. And most of all, remember you are human. This is something we all tend to forget – if you make mistakes, make big ones, and do that thing all over again.
That is my New Year’s wish for you.

(Previous years in review: 2014, 2012 2002, 2000)

The last couple of weeks of holidaying have been quiet. I was alone on December 25th and it was what I wanted. TheExHusband and I exchanged gifts, then off with him to his parents for dinner. I sat in my jimjams with Thursday glued to my right hip, ate sausage cornbread stuffing for dinner and trifle for dessert. I mainlined TV shows, knitted, and enjoyed the peacefulness of the world I created.
I sent out a slew of holiday cards this year (and got some in return). I walked more, got out and explored Louisville for a bit, read a few books, and mainly just enjoyed myself. This was my holiday season.

I’ve mentioned writing in a paper journal and I’ve cranked out 150 pages since October. The emotions vacillate, but as time moved on it became less of a “woe is me” and more “this is what I’ve done and this is what I’m going to do and here is how I’m going to do it.” I’ve quipped I wanted to be known as the Anais Nin/Samuel Pepys of my generation. “The Life and Times of an Aging Alternative Spinster.” (Yes, I’ve seen Bridge Jones’ Diary recently. Why do you ask?)
I’ve been journal writing steadily online for the last 20 years (!), so the migration over to paper seems a bit backwards; this I do not believe. Sure I cannot correct spelling mistakes, cut and paste pithy quotes, or add graphics but it’s raw. It’s freeform. It’s life. There is a line, astonishingly, of what I put online (much to some chagrin) and I need to have a place where that line can erased. Paper journals it is.

I have quite a few journals laying around that are half used. Some stretching back five or so years where I was writing an entry every couple of months, or notes, or something of that kind. Those journals I’m picking up where I left off and writing to the end, using Roman numerals to indicate which order they go in (green journal in the image). (I have no idea what I have in storage these days, but I do know that there are many, many blank journals for me to dig into.)
The black journal in the picture is my writing journal. Lines, quotes, or whatever I come up with, separated out from my paper journal for easy access without having to thumb like mad in said paper journal.
The pink journal is my Bullet Journal, which I was recently reminded of its existence (again). The easiest explanation is it’s an analog planner with massive amounts of flexibility. The only digital planner I can use is Google Calendar as it syncs across all of my iDevices. Pre-packaged paper journals and my Filofax bit the dust, so Bullet Journal it is!
The modules I have set up outside the legend and index are: monthly spread, habits tracker, gratitude page, goal settings page, book/movie list for that month (I am terrible at remembering what books I’ve read for that month), weight tracker, and then the daily spread. I love how I can add modules as I go, remove what I don’t need for the following month, and customize the fuck out of how I want it.
And it fits into my bag. (I first thought the bag was too small, but I did not return it because shipping it back to the UK would be expensive. Amazingly, I’ve been able to cram a lot of shit into that bag. Highly recommend. A++, would buy again.)
While I’m not working, I do have a lot to do (errands, appointments, paperwork for various entities, grocery shopping) and I forget all the time what I need to do, like get Thursday’s dog park tags, errands I need to run, projects I left undone or need to start. There is loads for me to do before I relax, as the kids say, and I want to use that time wisely.
So if you’re into finding a good solution to keep your life on track with massive amounts of flexibility, cheap, and without frills – Bullet Journal is the way to go.

My medicating therapist sent me in for blood work some weeks ago and the results came back perfect. This is not hyperbole, scouts honor. There are ranges for things (cholesterol, vitamin levels, thyroid levels, etc) which are considered normal and the sweet spot you should hopefully land. Despite the years of body asbuse (terrible eating in my youth, smoking, etc), everything came back perfect. I was pleased as punch because to look at me, know my weight, you’d think I was a walking diabetic waiting to happen. (Still not diabetic despite the uniform heredity of it passing on my mother’s side. Go me!)
Go fuck yourself, fat haters.
I went and had a physical, which also came out astonishingly well for being a fat chick (blood pressure excellent, confirmation of my blood work is excellent) and no fat shaming from the doctor.
My ob/gyn appointment went off without a hitch. With a history of cervical and vulva cancer, I have to be diligent on getting the vajay looked at. This ob/gyn gave me a rectal exam as apparently rectal cancer runs high in women over 35. Both my cunt and my ass were textbook perfection.
She was able to find the benign lump in my right breast, discovered a year ago with my first mammogram. (If you recall, I had a total of six mammograms including an ultrasound over six months and it was decreed everything was fine.) The lump is located at the intersection of my armpit and my breast, so I would not have found it if I was doing a self-exam.
Speaking of which, I go in for my yearly mammogram this week and hopefully the benign lump is still benign. I shudder at the thought of getting a biopsy to make absolutely fucking clear it’s benign.
LADIES! Get your tits checked.
Eye doctor also well. Textbook optical nerves, my eyes haven’t changed other than the moving astigmatism. New (progressive) glasses were purchased. I wanted your standard black frames and apparently this was neigh impossible, ALMOST.
Great health all around, I have good friends and chosen family, a roof over my head, a pug to call my own, clothes on my back, and food in my belly. All in all, I’m grateful for my life.
How are you?
xoxo,
Lisa

This Day in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2001

happy holidays

lisachristmas1975 — Me, 1975. I was three.

Dear Internet,
Five days. I lasted five days. I won’t promise that I’ll be updating on a super frequent basis as I’m massively writing in my paper diary these days but I’ll try to keep the world abreast of what’s going on.
My paper diary is an interesting read. I’ve been writing in it steadily for the last few months and you can follow the ups and downs of my emotions. I can not even begin to explain the swathe of emotions thrown about like a salad BUT it’s a good touchstone to figure out HOW things are getting there and how to be mindful of them in the future.

I was outside tonight having a smoke and the moon was so clear and bright, the valleys and mountains stains against the white of the surface. I stood staring at the moon as I smoked (I know, I KNOW!) and thought about the last few years and how my life profoundly changed.

I chronicle the last several years of my life as a chain of events beginning in February 2014. Wednesday died on February 1. I was served papers for the #teamharpy case in early June. I left my job to write a book on June 30. I left TheExHusband on August 24. I moved in with TheBassist on October 14. My book stalled in early November. Staring in mid-November, I started a whirlwind trip across these united states land that seemed to never stop. I’ve been living with TheExHusband since the first week of September 2015 when I went up to the cabin to close it down for him (and following him to Louisville after). In October 2015, TheBassist and I split.
In these last four months, this is the longest time I’ve lived at once location in the last yearish as I’ve been crisscrossing the US looking for work.
Coming up two years since the domino effect started and but I was internally dying before the domino started (job stress, marriage stress, etc). Yet, I would never have seen this massive amount of change coming from a million miles away. I could see maybe one or two things happening but the succession of each event turned my life into a country song.
Things have started to get better. The #teamharpy case settled on March 25, 2015. The divorce was granted on April 1. My interview rate has gone up (though no job offers – yet), I’ve been living in the same location for the last fourish months. Thursday came into my life.
The uptick has been slow, but it’s happening and I’m hoping the events that led me up today will start reversing itself, starting with the pug. That’s how it all started, right? In that vein, I (hopefully) will find out if I’m employed or not within the next few weeks. Once employed, then my own place, and so on and so forth.

There I am staring the moon and my thoughts turn to the things I am grateful for. I am grateful to TheExHusband and TheBassist for taking me in. I’m grateful for my friends. I’m grateful for TheExHusband letting me live with him while I wait for my life to straighten out. I’m grateful I have clothes on my back, food in my stomach, and my car paid off. My credit score is stable. I’m grateful that my health is good, I have a therapist, and a medication regime is keeping me on track.
No matter how fucked up my life is and has been, I am just thankful and grateful for being here, in this now.
I’m also grateful for TheBassist for breaking up with me, which is something I would never have admitted even a week ago.

One of his friends got in touch with me while I was in CT and joked as TheBassist had two extra tickets for the premier of Star Wars, I should go. I said sure, ask him. I’m curious about his response. The friend warned me TheBassist’s response to him was often slow. Time ticks on that night and as nothing has come back about a “yay” or “nay,” I accept it’s not going to happen. I will not lie and say I was not ready to leave at a moment’s notice, and I was. I will also not leave out I called TheBassist a day before my trip to see if he wanted to get together for dinner (no expectations, truly!) while I was in town and I was sent immediately to voicemail.
There I am, ready to rock if the answer comes back “yay” and if “nay”, I would accept this was okay, because it really was. Hope for the best, expect the worse and all that rot.
I fly back home on Friday and the friend gets in touch with me that night saying he heard from TheBassist. He then gives me the run down: TheBassist loves me and he always will, but I was a 24/7 flight risk. TheBassist broke down Borderline Personality Disorder and how I was sabotaging my life. He would never say never, but now? No.
It was in that moment when a switch flipped in my brain and everything changed. Something about the explanation of BPD TheBassist gave to the friend was that click. TheBassist knew, he’s always known. I ignored his advice and pleas to work on myself. He tried to save me, I wouldn’t let him or he couldn’t, and he had to let me go to figure it out myself.
Only I could save me and I’m no where near where I need to be in a relationship with TheBassist, let alone anyone else.
You’d think these chain of events would send me into a tizzy. But it didn’t. Two days prior when I flew into Hartford, I started sniffling. The sniffling turned into ugly crying as I walked the length of the airport. The ugly crying sent me running into the ladies’ where I let myself cry to get it all out. As I came out of the ladies’, I started doing deep breathing meditations as I walked towards the exit and tried not to look at the usual spot where TheBassist would be standing with a silly sign in his hand. With the deep breathing, I was able to make it through. I won’t lie and say I didn’t chain smoke outside while waiting for the rental car shuttle. I won’t lie that I didn’t take Klonopin to settle my nerves so I could drive 1.5 hours to my hotel. I will not leave out I wasn’t looking for his car in the pick-up lanes.
But Friday? I was fine. The world sharpened as it came into focus. I did deep breathing as the friend talked, asking if the response from TheBassist made sense. I said it did.
And I was happy. Fucking finally I was getting some peace.
This was not a manic happiness or a forced happiness. The last two months has been emotional pain. I could put a brave face to the world, doing my thing, letting the outside world think I was charming and personable (because really, I am). But home was a whole ‘nother story. I would cry for days. I would write disparaging things about TheBassist, what I would later call my “half-truths.” (Which one day, when I’m brave enough to write about it, I will give it a proper explanation.) But the pain in my heart was engulfing me and I begged TheExHusband and my friends to tell me how to get rid of it. I was willing to do almost anything put that flame out and no one had the answer.
For years, I was painting everyone who had remotely (or imagined) slighted me (especially TheBassist) as the bad guy when I only had myself to blame. I was trying to control things I could not control and nor should I have been. I put myself into situations that I could temper but didn’t. I could have ended those conversations, those thoughts, those feelings.
Only I could control myself. Only I could make the decision on what I wanted to do, something I evaded for the last 18 months. I wanted TheExHusband, TheBassist, and anyone close to me to make those decisions for me. No one would, of course, it was my life. But I didn’t understand that then my lack of decision was a decision.
(Please note I was never suicidal during this process. TheExHusband, my therapist, and I think someone else asked in a matter of days apart, if I had thoughts of ending my life. The answer is a resounding, “No!”. I want to be here on this planet and make my life meaningful and with purpose. Suicide were the farthest thing from my mind.)
The switch that flipped changed everything about my outlook. I accepted the emotional pain and rationalized it was not necessarily the end of a love affair with the man I knew to be the one, but the end of the affair was the breaking point. I was finally grieving for everything I had lost up to that moment. Oh, I said I was grieving, but remember the brave face and the half-truths? It was far easier to paint me as the wronged one rather than accept that if I had not sent that tweet, I would not have been sued. If I could have really tried, I could have saved my marriage. The only fault here was mine.
I began to, finally, accept the good things. I was steadily losing weight. I was keeping up with the exercising and the meditation. I was excite about my job interviews and the potentialy to have my own space. The pug helps ground me. I’m writing daily. I’ve been knitting like a fiend and the projects are getting complete. I savor going out in the world.
I am trying to be present and mindful.
BDP cannot be cured or control with drugs, but it can be lessened or recovery can happen via talk therapy (which I’m in now) and Dialectical Behaviour Therapy. I did DBT years and years ago, using some of the techniques to manage my emotions but I’ve let those tools rust and I need to get them back in rotation again. The writing and meditation help, but there is more. I’ve bought two books to work through the DBT alone (finding a good therapist, which I have, is difficult enough. Finding a DBT group is nearly impossible). I have done this before and I can do it again.
No one is ever really stable. Life is messy, but we can control how we messy we make life. I’m done with having chow mein existance and I strive to be more like a medium rare filet mignon. please.
And all the things, the plans I kept raving about, are finally solidifying. The sands are starting to turn into earth and one day will they will become mountains.

I sat out to write this as a “the holidays tend to suck, but I am grateful for these things (list things) and my life,” but has turned out to be more confessional then planned. Isn’t that always the case?

TheBassist is never far from my thoughts, but the worst of the pain has passed. I can stop boycotting Target, Barnes and Noble, Five Below or flinch when I see a Guitar Center. I have not cried when grocery shopping at a local store simply because it was the same layout as the grocery store TheBassist and I used to shop at. (I mean, really. A fucking crying jag in the produce aisle because it was designed similar to every other fucking grocery store on the planet but yet I associate it with ONE particular store? COME ON.) I’m okay when I pull out clothes that still smell of him and etc.

I cannot write this without thinking of e.e. cummings’ [i carry your heart with me(i carry it in], because that poem sings of my feelings for TheBassist. I have reconciled we may never see each other again, let alone get back together. I do know if/when I see him again, I will cry. Tears of relief, happiness, and everything in-between. Even if that is the only time I ever see him, I will cry. I better remember to not wear make-up.
Together we were not toxic, but I was toxic and in that toxicity I changed the pattern of the relationship. Love, faith, and want, at times, are simply not enough no matter how badly we want them to be.
Happy holidays.
xoxo,
Lisa

Today in Lisa-Universe: 2014, 2013, 2011, 2002, 2001

Giving Thanks

I’m going to warn you that I’ve been hitting the bottle while TheHusband and I have been prepping our dinner tomorrow. My husband would also like you to know that the more I drink¹, the more affectionate I get. Now on this topic, I think it’s a load of bollocks since I’m a pretty affectionate person by nature but he claims I’m more lovey dovey the more I drink. And of course he has examples, which only the annoyingly sober can do in times of pointless arguments like this one.
But I digress.
The last 12 months have been amazing in so many ways by the sheer amount of life crap we’ve crammed into such a short amount of time. This ranges from getting married, to finishing my second master on to our honeymoon, the travels I’ve done on top of that, the people I’ve met and all the other things I’ve accomplished.
I feel like I’ve been extraordinarily lucky not only for having an amazing pookie bear by my side (aka TheHusband), but for the sheer amount of genuine concern, help, outreach, friendship, love and support I’ve received in all avenues of my life, from the job hunt to the building of my Etsy store and everything in between. TheHusband always jokingly kids that, compared to him, I have too much faith in the kindness of the human population but if anything, the sheer amount of people who have reached out in so many ways to me this year- how can I not? I’ve been extremely humbled by how gracious and kind everyone has been to me, to us, in everything.
While I always make it a point to thank people individually when I’ve received something from them, sometimes I know it is more appreciated when the kindness is remembered later on. I would just like to say thank you, again, to everyone for not only enriching my life but for making me a much better person for it. Your kindness has been accepted with much humility and gratefulness. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

1. I’m currently at 2 bottles of Guinness and I’m feeling ALRIGHT MAN!