A New Year Upon Us--written on the Eve AND the Day

I've always been a bit of a cliché on New Year's Eve.  In my twenties I went to a few NY Eve parties with my theater gang and I remember some of those very, very fondly.  But as I got older I found I really did want to use the night for reflection, for trying to muster hope for better times, for re-evaluating my own actions.  Even when I was married, my husband and I used the night to be together quietly, to shut the world away. Our kids went to my folks' house from the time I married Mark until my dad died. Every year they went for those five years.

My children are stepchildren, but I rarely refer to them that way. They are my kids. They knew I did not refer to them as my stepkids and they were fine with that.  I told them that it was fine with  me if they had just ONE mom, but to me? To me I had two kids, period.

My parents adored them and Jess and Jay ate up the idea that they had new grandparents, so New Year's Eve became their own private ritual. Even on Dad's last New Year's, when Jessie was sixteen, when he tried to let her off the hook, she teared up and snapped at him, "Don't you DARE try to tell ME what to do. THIS is where I want to be for New Year's Eve. With YOU." He could no longer walk unassisted by then, and Jess had, in fact, been invited to her first New Year's Eve party, but she wanted to be with them.  I never have had a New Year's Eve pass without thinking of the look on her face at the mere thought of such a thing.

In the seventeen years I've now been alone, however, that night is my night for serious reflection and serious solitude.  I would  not say that I make resolutions. I think calling them that dooms me to fail, actually. I make wishes I think, more than anything. I try to frame them as promises to myself to try... promises to move forward in whatever directions I've chosen as forward. Focus on  health, NOT lose twenty pounds.  Enjoy my studio, NOT paint four pictures by August.  The wishes toward people are harder. This year's challenge of course is R.  Telling myself I will not think of him is like saying DO NOT THINK of a RED BOX. Right.  What I have to do is find a way to be real in this, to tell myself something honest and difficult, but that does not denigrate the love that I have.

Anyway, here is my little list. I've kept it small because I frankly have so much to do--selling the house, doing PT. THOSE are enough.

1. Enjoy my studio for part of every day, even if it's only ten minutes
   
2. Focus on my health three days a week--through PT, Exercise, the hard work of helping it along
   
3. Weed through all closets by April (we are aiming for putting the house on the market in May, and I have seven closets)
4. Say "No" to one particular friend when her requests make my teeth clench. (I've had this on my list for years and I make little progress, sigh...)
5. Let my heart heal in its own time and knock of obsessing about it -- have faith that the healing will come with time, and that I will at last be able to let go, without bitterness, without anger.
6. Let myself feel whatever I have to in this terribly difficult time ahead without the harsh judgments of myself where I fall. THIS IS THE TOUGHEST, and it includes the rest.
7. Re-enter the world through volunteerism, not just friendships.  Giving will help everything.
   

That's the first step for me. I have my list all written. By midnight, I may have made some changes. (I DID make some changes, so that's fine.) Along around nine I begin.  I call a couple of friends to say "I love you." And then I read my list of promises and let them percolate. Then I slowly say the names of every single person I love and why I love her or him. R. will be on the list, because I DO love him and there are reasons. I will list G's ex-husband. Some years Mark (my ex-husband) is there, but not in a long time. The very sad truth is that I have let go of him almost entirely--he exorcised me wholly from his life, which made me sad for years.  His way of coping with guilt was to pretend I no longer existed and to leave all traces of our marriage behind.  I simply wish him well. I include those who have died as well. Sometimes I leave a few people out, but it's okay. The process is a good one for me because there ARE lots of names and lots of reasons that make me smile, not simply cry.  I have a rich, rich history of friendships. Then I read my promises out loud again.

And I sit very still for a while--maybe ten or fifteen minutes. I can't say what I think because I don't know. I think it is more meditation than anything else. And I say aloud "I love you Jean Ellen, I love you Jason,  I love you R, I love you Judy..." and so on down that list, without pausing, but like a chant, really. THEN I write a list of mistakes I cannot undo. Some years there aren't a lot, some years it's horrendously long.  But I write the list and read it aloud and then I ask forgiveness--usually, this is long after I've already covered it  with the person in person, but I have trouble forgiving myself anyway. I then say, "I let go of the mistakes I cannot undo. May I do better in the coming year, and may I show more compassion and understanding to those I've hurt in the past. May I be a better woman to everyone." And I burn the little slips of paper with my mistakes.  It works pretty well for me. Doesn't mean I don't screw up again, just it makes me feel fresher, as if there is a clean slate.

Usually it is close to midnight then. I go to bed and do not tend to try to stay up. It's too lonely for me at that Happy New Year instant. I wanted Mark here for so many years.  I had my parents for all the years before and we would speak, no matter where we were. And this year, well, I know what I wish for that will not be here. So I'll go to bed and I probably will fall asleep quickly.

What do you all do for New Year's Eve?

I admit I am afraid of what may be coming, but I am trying very hard to focus on what I CAN change, not on  what I cannot. It will take time and work. I will be starting another blog, JettyReconstructed... but I'm not sure when or whether it will be associated with this blog at all. I want to keep a record of starting over from scratch. That's what I'll be doing. My career is shot. My finances are non-existent.  My health has made a drastic turn. EVERYTHING in my life has changed in the last few years. I have no birth family left and I used to have a big family. The R. situation turned my emotions upside down and completely unsettled an area of my life that I HAD made peace with--and I have yet to find much good in his having returned. Now I need to start over even there, in making peace with this solitary  life. (Please. No responses about how things may change and a guy may come along. I want my peace of mind back. I need to move forward on my own, without expectation of something like the miracle of knowing what it is to be loved. I need to re-locate the parts of me that were content with life as a single woman, and focus on that.) My spine poses brand new limitations and challenges, and I have to learn new ways around those limitations.  Art is new to me--this painting stuff only began in 1996 and I did not paint at all for about six of those years. I hadn't space--I did not LET me have space.  Anyway, I feel as if I really am starting from square one at fifty-seven and I am wondering whether that journey  might be interesting to write about in a formal way. I am sick of stories of YOUNG people starting over, or of starting over at forty.

I have to find a way to the EXCITEMENT of all this, not just what scares me. So I want to start the record of that personal journey. Maybe it IS self-indulgent, but maybe in doing it I will come OUT of myself more.  Maybe I will think more about what I am doing if I write about it, too.  This is something I can really thank R. for--he seemed to believe in my abilities and wanted me to be able to simply choose to work on my art and on my writing at will.  He wanted me to stop having to worry so much, to have the chance to really explore my writing and my painting. It shocked me that anyone could believe me like that. He wanted me to see this in myself not just because he saw it in me.  Now I can choose to shrug that off because of my poor little broken heart (blecch) or I can believe him, and take that lesson to heart. And find the way to DO IT. It would make the relationship have purpose then, if I took the many good and supportive things he said to me, let go of whether or not the relationship exploded, keep those words as truth,  and truly work them into my life in this new year ...

It's kind of like rebuilding a house that suddenly burned  nearly to the ground. There are some sound parts left, a foundation that's whole.  But now I have to make it liveable, build around those parts and up from ground zero where I have to. I have to believe that it's worth rebuilding, not throwing it all away and abandoning myself.  I have felt perilously close in the last year to doing that, to giving up. Not just because of R.

Perhaps he is a catalyst here, not the final straw.  And perhaps I had to simply let this fire burn out to see what's left in me on every front.  I don't know, but there is, now on this NEW YEAR--I'm finishing this on New Year's Morning--a sense of purpose inside.  Memoir remains important to me, to honor the lessons of the past, but there is also the allure of this coming year's many, many trials as the transition to some new adventure.  I do not see that this year will hold lots and lots of neat experiences that are "fun" or light. I have too much work to do, but I DO see that every step I take for PT, every weight I lift, every stroke I swim, can take me further to my dreams.  Every stroke I brush onto paper is one stroke more toward a finished piece.  Every poem begun moves toward a song or completed piece. 

2010 will be a year of many, many baby steps to make gargantuan change and that's okay.  I need to focus on those small steps, the individual motions to progress, the moments of laughter with the people I love that will punctuate a great many days of solitary effort.  For the first time in about nine months, it feels okay. Not manic, but not overwhelmingly sad.  Last year I tried to make three big dreams come to fruition and all three exploded within five months of one another. And I am afraid the house of Jetty burned pretty badly.

But there is a reason I return to my Phoenix poem always.  I think, in this blogosphere, there are a whole lot of us, aren't there. And sometimes our blogs are our ways of flying up and out of the ruins... another way to say "I AM NOT INVISIBLE."  A way to learn from others, to be inspired and lifted. So much talent in the blogs I follow, and in the bogs YOU follow that I have not yet explored.

Pollyanna I am not. But I do try, on New Year's Eve, to drag out the optimism, shine it up, and really put it to use to get me started. And today, it seemed to have done its work, this yearly ritual.

If I start the new blog, rather than keep it as a private journal, I'll let you know.

***

May all of you have years that give you joy, even if there are losses.  May you find unexpected ways to shine. I know that, for me, since I read YOUR blogs as well, I sure see wonderful gifts shining, sparkling, Glowing from each of you. THANK you so much for hanging in with me this year, for offering encouragement, compliments, comfort. There is nothing "virtual" in that. It's real and I appreciate it.

With love to you all,
Happy New Year

Update and my Christmas Tree

Thank you for the inquiries about my health.  I have had some difficult news about the spinal issues and am simply working on learning to function in spite of them AND accommodating them as necessary. Sometimes this means finding the boundaries by crashing into them and then needing a few days to deal with the repercussions, but, well, that's the only way I know to learn my limitations.

I have to find them.

Super stores would appear to be my main downfall. I cannot make it through  a super grocery store, so I will not go to them any more. I have had several dear friends suggest I use a motorized cart, but I think that this maybe shows most graphically how I feel I need to approach the challenges of new damage in both the thoracic and cervical spine.

I will not sit down unless there is no choice. There are other stores in which I can shop, and while they cost a bit more money, they allow me to stand, to walk, to complete my shopping, to get the items upstairs all on my own. THEN I can recuperate for a couple of hours. Psychologically, that choice to use the motorized chair is a symbol for me. I do not judge anyone for choosing the chair.

But for now? I need to keep my legs moving when and however I can.

My absence here is simply a reflection of my turning my attention to physical survival and adaptation. The pain is horrible, yes... but there are medications that help, and I am learning to use my yoga and breathing to control my own response to what pain remains because I choose NOT to have large doses of the meds.

I am decorating my tree. What used to be a two day process is a four-day one, but it is a beautiful process for me.  Ninety per cent of the ornaments on my tree are gifts and/or symbols of people I love. David is a drummer... an old love who remains a dear, dear friend. I have a stained glass "present" ornament he gave me thirty years ago, and three drum sets friends have given me. Jim--the brother of whom I rarely write--played the trombone. I keep an ornament that reminds me of the best of him. He had a best and I choose to keep that nugget. My sister played the clarinet, Jack played the banjo. Jamie and R, the guitar. I have my two guitars and I choose to keep R. on my tree, despite the way he treated me.  My tree represents the best of people I love, and when I look I try to focus on that. I have gifts from Gail, from Paige and Judy, Nancy, Sue, Martha... ornaments that were my parents', ornaments from both sets of grandparents' trees.  There is the reindeer in her glitter dress, leaping... my tutu'd flamingo, Santa on a chicken, a glitter pig riding the moon, a rocking cow. I have blown glass holly and a hobby horse. I have glass icicles that will be the finishing garnish, replacing the lead tinsel of my youth. One hundred fifty of them will go on tonight, near lights. With a finishing touch of 100 tiny balls on the tips. They make the tree float at night.

My tree represents joy to me. I have modes of transportation, every musical instrument known, right down to an accordion.  I have beautiful Santas and dopey ones, I have a castle and a house, tinkerbell and the tin man. Raggedy Andy. I gave Raggedy Ann to my counselor the Christmas after Jessie died, and she gave me a blown glass bell from Bermuda. I have a flute; Jessie played the flute. And a little boy playing soccer, the way Jay did. So many bits that make me think of them all...

And all of it is my mother and father.

My tree is love; the season is love to me.  If anything can bring me out of the losses of the last few years, can help me believe that there will be joy in the years ahead, my tree will do it. The recollections of my family Christmases, of my beloved sister.

Fetching the stockings at the top of the stairs. Daddy's socks were long. We hung them by the chimney, but Santa put them at the top of the stairs. Jean Ellen got them, told the boys it was time, and the four of us piled on her big bed, to open the stockings, to laugh... to give my parents' an extra hour's rest on the craziest day of our year...

But that's for another week.

For now, thank you one and all, for the concern, and for making me feel that my writing offers gifts to more than myself. I have to go work on my tree some more. I cannot find just the right place for my hooker flamingo in her polka dotted dress. I mean, you can't put her just anywhere. And my glitter frog prince... I was given him as a reminder that maybe one day the amphibian would change.

Not so much, but I don't care. I JUST love that damned frog just fine.

Uh-oh... then there is the high heeled puce green boot with the red feather fur at its top... the problem with having the tree at the top of the stairs, is there is no longer any "back of the tree!"  Elvis can be seen, even in toward the trunk. And this boot? OH. Wait. There's a spot just above Santa on a Chicken, three branches from the pig wrapped in a string of lights... never mind.

Later.