Two years ago, at this time of the year, I cracked.
I don't know how many people knew it at the time or even cared. I did what I always do, I hid it. I hid behind plaster smiles, forced laughter, and constant misdirection. Any time problems in my life came up in conversation I deflected it and changed the topic.
It's not really a surprise that I was falling apart internally. I was getting only a couple hours of sleep in the wee hours of the morning in between the hourly reoccurring nightmares. I was stressing over how to pay all the bills a two income house incurs as well as getting the house note back up to date, on one income. I was skipping meals to make ends meet. I was feeling alone, isolated, and forsaken. The hamster wheel in my brain was getting a lot of use as the worries ran around and around in my head. My inner demons took pot shots at me every chance they got. Rodents were invading my house. Was that a flicker of light that made the shadows shift or something small and furry?
Only two people ever had a glimmer of how bad things really were. I finally broke to somebody I loved and trusted, somebody who kept saying they were there for me. That person brushed off my worries and fears. They told me I'd be fine, that I'd figure a way to make everything come together. They told me I was stronger than anybody they knew.
Inside I was crumbling apart, losing all definition of me, of that strong person I appeared to be.
I thought I could continue to hide it all. I invited a friend to spend the weekend, thinking they didn't know me well enough to see through the thin veneer of self I was holding up every day. They got close, close enough to see the light streaming through all the cracks, all the places where my patch jobs had failed or fallen away. They got closer than I though anybody would ever care to be.
It tore me up inside because I didn't want them to see me as I was.
I feared that they would turn away, shun me because I wasn't holding together as I should have. I worried that they'd see me a weak, silly, childish. I fretted that I would again be alone and even more hurt when they walked the other direction.
Instead they pulled me closer, they held me tight in the dark, they lent their shoulder when my tears flowed. They took time to sit down with me and sort things out. They were available no matter the time when I needed to talk.
Was it an overnight healing? No.
It took time for me to feel that I was getting my self back.
Even today there are moments when the worries slip back in and gnaw at my hind brain. I fight it and keep reminding myself that things are different. I'm really not alone anymore. He won't think less of me or turn me away.
I'm finally feeling safe enough again to begin putting myself back together, completely this time.
*yawn*
Apparently Nox managed to injure or sprain her knee that she had to have surgery on last year. So I didn't get a lot of sleep last night since I spent the night worrying about her. This morning she seems to be okay but favoring it a bit . Right now though she's napping next to me. At least she was able to put weight on it a bit this morning. Hopefully she'll be okay and it's a quick recovery.
I'm tired though ... a nap sounds very good right now. I may very well take one later.
The poll for
The entire apartment is clean and ready for the new year. I'm finally caught up on LJ Idol posts and all my emails. Now I can settle down to catch up on three days of lj.
The party on the first was delightful and fun to watch others open the dreamcatchers and cookies we made for them.
I changed the colors of lj which means a new default icon, though I may very well change the background again since I'm somewhat iffy on it.
I logged into City this afternoon and was tapped for a pick up group running Sister Psyche task force so I got that done too.
It's been a wonderful start to the new year.
Happy Birthday to
The Christmas Cookie Spread
Originally uploaded by ShadowWolf13
Here's all the lovely things we made to take with us to the party tomorrow. It's possibly a good thing that the season is coming to a close because otherwise we'll each gain 100lbs with all these goodies around.
I uploaded more pictures of the individual groups to the flickr feed if anybody is interested in checking them out.While I was not posting my book count each month I was continuing to read. I had hoped to break my count of 66 in 2007 but since I took about two months out and read only Fantasy & Science Fiction magazines while I was contemplating the move to Houston (something about me not wanting to clean Apis' apartment without his help and all his books being hidden away out of my sight ... ) that was not to be. I did keep track of my page total though, just because I'm silly like that. It came out to a grand total of 16,922 pages read. I reread a lot of old friends and found quite a few new ones, including my introduction to true Lovecraft stories. I have many friends to revisit this coming year and many new friends to explore as well.
1. Fractal Mode (344p) by Piers Anthony
2. Chaos Mode (358p) by Piers Anthony
3. The Servants of Twilight (271p) by Dean R. Koontz
4. French Silk (403p) by Sandra Brown
5. Shame of Man (503p) by Piers Anthony
6. Darkfall (200p) by Dean R. Koontz
7. Phantoms (266p) by Dean R. Koontz
8. Hope of Earth (631p) by Piers Anthony
9. The Mist (230p) by Stephen King
10. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (388p) by Robert A. Heinlein
11. Captive Pride (494p) by Bobbi Smith
12. Taming the Heiress (331p) by Susan King
13. With This Ring (343p) by Amanda Quick
14. The Scot (299p) by Lyn Stone
15. Sweet Obsession (446p) by Kathy Jones
16. Letters to Penthouse XXI (455p) by The Editors of Penthouse Magazine
17. Captive Bride (496p) by Carol Finch
18. Spindrift (320p) by Phyllis A. Whitney
19. The Scarletti Curse (390p) by Christine Feehan
20. The Black Gryphon (460p) by Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon
21. The White Gryphon (399p) by Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon
22. The Silver Gryphon (400p) by Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon
23. Magic’s Pawn (349p) by Mercedes Lackey
24. Magic’s Promise (320p) by Mercedes Lackey
25. Magic’s Price (351p) by Mercedes Lackey
26. Brightly Burning (445p) by Mercedes Lackey
27. The Oathbound Book 1: Vows and Honor (302p) by Mercedes Lackey
28. Oathbreakers Book 2: Vows and Honor (318p) by Mercedes Lackey
29. Oathblood (394p) by Mercedes Lackey
30. Take A Thief (435p) by Mercedes Lackey
31. Arrows of the Queen (320p) by Mercedes Lackey
32. Arrow’s Flight (318p) by Mercedes Lackey
33. Arrow’s Fall (319p) by Mercedes Lackey
34. By the Sword (492p) by Mercedes Lackey
35. Winds of Fate (460p) by Mercedes Lackey
36. Winds of Change (475p) by Mercedes Lackey
37. Winds of Fury (427p) by Mercedes Lackey
38. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (144p) by Douglas Adams
39. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (166p) by Douglas Adams
40. Life, the Universe, and Everything (160p) by Douglas Adams
41. So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (142p) by Douglas Adams
42. Young Zaphod Plays it Safe (14p) by Douglas Adams
43. Mostly Harmless (188p) by Douglas Adams
44. The Long, Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (307p) by Douglas Adams
45. Westmark (190p) by Lloyd Alexander
46. The Kestrel (244p) by Lloyd Alexander
47. The Haunter of the Dark and Other Tales (256p) by H.P. Lovecraft
48. The Wizard of Oz (168p) by L. Frank Baum
49. Shards of Darkness (158p) by E. P. Berglund
50. A Princess of Mars (159p) by Edgar Rice Burroughs
51. Unaccompanied Sonata (282p) by Orson Scott Card
52. Plague Year (292p) by Jeff Carlson
It's been a very roller coaster type of year around here.
January:
I began my quest to get my name changed by looking up costs and getting the paperwork together. I still worked at the Labs and had three roommates. Lynn was coming up every other weekend to spend time with me and it was very nice to have a friend to turn to and help out around the house. Despite that a ton of my thoughts and energy was tied up on My DFW Boy and trying to see him, though every plan was shot through my his insane job.
February:
I spoke with my parents about changing my name and their reception of the idea was very negative; both of them were very unhappy with my dislike of my birth name. I continued to deal with missed dates with My DFW Boy. I was returning to my writing and trying to get back into it, spending time on it every day at lunch. I was also feeling like quite the little house elf by constantly cleaning up other people's messes at home. One the plus side I purchased Dream and had my very own gaming system, on the down side I lost my job at the Labs at the end of the month which brought on a lot of hard thinking between me and My DFW Boy.
March:
Some of that heavy talking and thinking with My DFW Boy led to bringing ApisAnthrop into my life in a more romantic way, as a secondary with My DFW Boy as primary. My brother was supposedly living with me but had been mostly staying at a friends. At this point he moved back into my house and brought a couple friends with him as well. I found a temp job doing data entry and made plans to go down to Houston to visit Apis so we could go to AggieCon together.
April:
That trip to AggieCon ended in a trip to the hospital. So I lost my job at the data entry job and found myself restricted from driving due to head trauma. I was so very lovingly nursed back to health by Apis. I finally made my way back to Irving and found my house overrun by roaches and barely legal boys and their girlfriend's children. I took enough time to turn around a couple times and repack my bags. I drove back down to Houston, this time planning to stay more than a weekend but less than a month.
May:
I was having very little luck finding a job and the house company was getting rather impatient wanting their money from me. I had more of those deep conversations with My DFW Boy and with Apis and it was eventually decided that I'd move to Houston on a more permanent basis and when My DFW Boy could get his job and finances straightened out he would join us. I started doing the keep and toss packing from the house, even if it was mostly in my head since we could only take a couple of days out to drive to Irving and cram things into the car and one of those weekends was also filled with Akon in DFW.
June:
My quest to change my name was completed and legal! The judge heard me out and approved my request. This was also to be my last weekend in DFW so I had a meeting with a realtor and made time to take Apis and Miss Kid out to meet my mother. We finally get everything back down to Houston in one piece and I busy myself with unpacking things and making the apartment into a home. At the end of the month Apis texts me on a Thursday night to let me know that I need to pack everything up because we're moving on Tuesday of the next week. I also finally found a doctor that was willing to look at me and see how much damage had been done from the accident.
July:
We started out the month with yet another move, this one more organized than the other but in far less time. Physical therapy appointments were set up to begin at the first of the month with the directive to take it easy and not do a lot of heavy lifting. Ha! We were to be out of the old place by 5pm of Wednesday the 2nd, we finally finished up the moving at 5am on Thursday the 3rd. After getting ourselves some sleep the organizing of the new place began, naturally starting with unpacking all the books. We rearranged the relationships so that Apis was primary since he was the one I was living with and getting the closest to and My DFW Boy was secondary. I ended up breaking up with My DFW Boy due to lack of communication and wrapped up the month with an MRI.
August:
Well, the breakup didn't last very long, which is good; things seem to be better between us now that we have new rules of communication between us. Apis and I began settling into a daily routine. Apis figured out just how simple it is to please me with little things. Physical therapy continued and I turned back to my roots of desktop gaming. Plus, the 5th was when I started a little project with Apis, he knows what that means...
September:
The big news of this month was Ike blowing through town. I was supposed to have my final physical therapy appointment but Ike delayed that. To fill up my time I signed up for The Real LJ Idol and for The Bren Idol. Both began and I got back into my writing again, this time with feedback which has a wonderful way of getting me to keep pushing through to the next week. I finally got a clean bill of health from the physical therapy doctor though I'll have good days and bad days.
October:
Finally it's my favorite time of the year! Time to decorate for Halloween! The writing contests both continue on and I am surprised each week by the comments and support I get. I also opened up my shop on Etsy, Catch A Dream. My lovely Sir and boyfriend Fragbert said that it was time to let it out that he was my love and boyfriend so I was delighted to crow a bit about that. I am constantly reminded of how lucky I am to have three wonderful men who love me.
November:
The month of insanity has begun. Halloween has barely blown out of town and I begin my third run at National Novel Writing Month. I'm also caught up in the whirlwind of voting, planning Thanksgiving dinner and celebrating my birthday by getting engaged to my beloved Apis. I again completed the goal on the novel but it meant a lot of thinking about the likelihood of doing it again next year. So far the prediction is that I won't because I dislike tossing out crap, or close to it, just to get the word count for the day.
December:
Yet another month were I am delighted by decorating and cozy family things. We've had friends to gather with this year and it's been wonderful and a fantastic change from the previous years where I've spent 95% (or more) of the season alone. We've been doing the domestic bliss baking thing for several days and I think some of the best part of it all has been doing it 'together'. I was able to save a kitty from a shelter and make sure she got to a good home. The store on Etsy has been doing wonderfully for all that I've had a lack of time to focus on it.
But now the year is wrapping up and as we draw it to a close I am turning to look forward to the coming year and all the joy it promises. A fair amount of time will be taken with the upcoming wedding which is scheduled for September and setting our future life together so it has only the very best as a foundation. After that we'll start looking at what kind of home we want to build together and work more towards achieving our dreams in that realm. Our hope is still that My DFW Boy will still join us at some point but we shall see how things turn out. I want to spend a bit more time focusing on the inner me though as I have neglected that this past year while trying to keep from being buried under all the sudden changes that flew at me. I also want to find a job and spend more time working on writing and the dreamcatchers. I would love for them to do really well.
All in all, I think that the coming year is going to be absolutely fantastic and filled with love, light, and laughter. What more could anybody ask for?
Happiest of days to the very sweet and wonderful
Happy birthday to
Lynn's Birthday Cake 2008 003
Originally uploaded by ShadowWolf13
My special project today was Lynn's birthday cake, homemade black forest cake, his favorite.
After we had dinner we baked two of the five sets of cookies that we're taking to the party we're going to on the first. Tomorrow's the last of the cookies and we'll be able to wrap them all up to take them all with us.So much for all that "You can't cook" crap I used to get from my family.
I need a nice baking icon...
