2020 – Hindsight and the New Year

I don’t know how I managed to completely miss that at the end of this year, not only will it be a new year, but an entirely new DECADE. Where the hell have I been, and what the fuck have I been doing that I missed that memo? Oh, yeah, that’s right. My personal life had fallen apart and I have spent the last year rebuilding it from the ground up.

So I guess I have a legit excuse, but I am still kicking myself in the teeth. Had I paid more attention, I expect that I may have made more of an effort to get myself together, not just my life, and perhaps set better goals for myself.

As some may know, at the start of 2019 I was lucky to find a new job working for what could be considered my dream employer. However, it came after 5 months spent swirling the drain of depression after getting laid off from my last job. So, though I was grateful, it took a few months before the stench of desperation rubbed off me. So I spent most of the first quarter of the year just picking myself up off the ground.

Then the summer struck, and it was just a string of unexpected events which didn’t really help, and kept me distracted enough from the bigger picture. Namely my beloved truck falling apart, and then my son’s car failing him causing an almost fatal incident, and then other financial hiccups as a result of the 5 month stint in unemployment.

By the time autumn rolled around, I was barely hanging on and had to turn to my family for help, much to my chagrin. Unfortunately, the rest of the year sort of limped along from there as I suffered the indignity of being beholden to my brother for his financial assistance and then the pair of my brother and mother holding that assistance over my head like the proverbial sword of Damocles.

For every setback I endure, I feel as if whatever I may have accomplished beforehand is forfeit. Got a new job? Pffft. What does that matter when I struggle to pay my bills. Own my home? Pffft. What does that matter when I can’t afford to pay to have maintenance done? Own my car outright? So what? I’m so financially strapped that I can’t afford to get it fixed. So really, as 2019 rolls to a close, I am just treading water.

I’m sure anyone with a fiber of common sense has seen this thing on Twitter where someone posts a picture of themselves from 10 years ago, and then one from today. It got me thinking…

Where was I ten years ago? And would I consider my state now an improvement? Or a step back?

10 years ago, December 2009, I was married and living in Virginia. And thanks to the everlasting banality of facebook, I have virtual proof that I was hella boring. I was singing in a church choir (nothing wrong with that), I played way too many facebook games like Farmville (OMG). I was a stay at home mom. I had a cat and a dog. My two kids and my step-son. Not much mention of the ex. He may have been overseas, or on deployment, or absent in general.

Sometimes it felt like all I did was keep moving in an effort to prove to myself that I wasn’t trapped in an unhappy marriage with a man that I did not respect and who treated me like trash, if on the surface to everyone else it appeared that he really treasured me. And if my search is at all conclusive, I was not journaling as much as I should have been. That is actually the most distressing. I have good records from 2008 and before, then from 2011 and beyond. But the years of 2009 and 2010, I was not putting anything down on paper.

I have to dig through my hard drives to see if I at least have photographic evidence of those years. Was I even happy?

So how does 2019 compare? I am divorced. My ex is remarried and the stepson has sadly passed away. I am living in Texas, on my own with my two children. I no longer go to church. I have a job I love, I am paying all my own bills. I have five cats. I am journaling more than ever. I may not have much, but I am living life on my own terms. Feels like I am doing better.

Certainly room for improvement, but I have the desire to do so. Whereas 10 years ago when I was in the throes of the dying marriage, I was just going through the motions. So where do I go from here? 

Baby steps. I don’t see myself going from zero to hero without crashing and burning. So where do I start? Well, for starters, thanks to my well earned vacation time, I think I am going to spend some of that time working on my truck. Ain’t shit else to do when I am stuck at the house, and frankly it’s just as well. I’d probably end up going somewhere and spending money I don’t have. I can help my son work on his car. We can get some of the DIY stuff done around the house. 

I can read more books. I can journal. And I can post more about the shit that I’m getting done right here on my blog so I can entertain the masses who bother to read it. 

I certainly didn’t plan to be where I am today. And I don’t subscribe to the helplessness that one coworker described to me with his platitudes of “Things happen for a reason” when I was talking about wishing I had better planned for the encroaching end of a decade. Ugh, what a useless phrase. Like I’m so much flotsam just being tossed about on the sea of life without so much as a rudder or a paddle. Bitch please. 

I may not be doing a fantastic job of directing my life, but I am responsible for all the choices I have made. I do not buy into that nonsense that no matter what there’s some larger plan that is dictating all the things that happen no matter how shitty. For real? That’s a slippery slope into blaming others for your lot in life. And once the blame game starts, the next step is apathy. 

I would like to think that we have a part to play in how our lives turn out. In the choose your own adventure of my life, I have sometimes chosen well, and sometimes chosen poorly. Sadly, there are no do-overs, but I can learn from my mistakes. That is the only wisdom of old age. 

And I’m not doing too terrible. I’m younger than my ex, so that’s something.  I suppose it’s not too late for me to get myself sorted out and decide if I want to keep on this path I am on, or if I want to forge in a different direction. The only thing keeping me here is me, so I guess I better make up my mind what I want to do. On that end, I do have some personal goals for my career. I also have some additional goals for getting my nutrition back on track, as well as my fitness.

Basically, I will spend some quality time with myself during my year end breather to figure out what I want with my life. I have been afforded this opportunity to reflect and the time to do it. I would be a fool to waste it by just letting each day happen to me, as I have before.

Hindsight, afterall, is 20/20.