New Year and Discipline

The holidays were tough this year, as they have been since KC has been gone, but this year it has been different and worse.  About 3 weeks before Thanksgiving my dad told me that he had renal cancer and would have to have surgery to remove his left kidney.  To add to this, he said I couldn't tell anyone about it.  I was sitting at the dinner table with my parents, my sister, brother-in-law, and niece and my dad dropped this bomb.  As soon as I heard the words "I have cancer" my vision blurred, my temperature rose, and I stopped hearing everything else that he said. I soon got up and ran to the bathroom to throw up; as if my body thought it could extinguish the bad news. My father has had the surgery and is doing quite well, but I can't shake the feeling of foreboding.

This news and the surgery obviously affected my Thanksgiving celebration. We still had the dinner we usually have, but it was tainted. It felt different.  The food was different as Pop wasn't able to prepare the entire meal as he usually does and other people provided the bulk of the feast.  It was nice to have everyone, and obviously I am grateful that Pop is hangin in there, but shit, man. The foreboding. It's there and it's real.

A short couple weeks later was four years since KC passed, and then two days later it was my 31st birthday.  My birthday was on a Saturday this year, however, it was a grad school weekend, so that Friday, Saturday and Sunday were 12 hour school days.  Though my cohort at school was incredibly kind and ritualized my day in an unbelievable showing of love and appreciation, it wasn't the same as celebrating my birthday with my family and my friends as I usually do.  I felt a little like my birthday was skipped this year.

The last week of work before winter break is always brutal. The kids were crazy and I was at my wits end, aching for Friday afternoon and the freedom that awaited me. Freedom finally came, and I woke up with a terrible cold that first Saturday morning of my vacation.  Mind you, this was a working vacation, as I have 4 papers due tomorrow for school, but it was a vacation nonetheless.  Yet, it was just a cold...how bad could it be, right? Wrong. I am still sick. There have been days here and there in the last two weeks where I thought I was getting better and over it, but it has fallen back to the nastiness and I still can't shake it. The worst part is that I had laryngitis as well, and it was at its worst on Christmas Day, forcing me to stay home alone while my family celebrated together, without me.  My Christmas was spent barely conscious on a couch all by myself, unable to talk.

I realize I am sounding like a whiny little kid, here. Trust me, I am fucking sick of myself too. But I am affected by this. Being sick for so long has taken away experiences from me. It even affected the papers I have had to write, as being so sick for so long apparently has a dramatic affect on cognitive functioning (who knew?). But the point is, as I am looking at a brand new year, I have had a lot of time to think about how I want to make this year better than the last, and broaden my experiences. I have been trying to think of a word to encompass all aspects of my life that I want to improve.  The best that I can come up with is discipline.  If I can be disciplined, I will maximize the use of my time in my work and school.  I will be in charge of my health and fitness.  I will have space in my domicile.  I will limit my spending to save for the things that really matter to me, like travel, family,  and education. And maybe, if I am lucky, it will spill over into my romantic endeavors too and I will be able to make time and take chances to aim toward a better life for myself.

So, this year, I aim toward discipline. I will manifest 2015 in the best way possible and change habits that no longer serve me. Discipline, kids. The name if the 2015 game.

Wishing you a connected, disciplined, and empowered year.

New Year. New Shit. Let's do this.

Happy 2013, my friends! I have been waiting all year for this new year, so it better be good! I am coming to you live and in color from a brand new perspective. 2 years and then some have passed since I lost my beautiful, loving fiance in a tragic and unexpected accident. KC and I were only together for less than 3 years, and so this seems a little strange to me, that he has now been gone almost as long as we were together, as long as I knew the man.  I mourn him daily in quiet, private ways. It can be a thought, a chuckle, a memory, a frustration; but I still have him near and dear to me every single day. With this, I have begun (as previously blogged) to date another man. This man is similar and different to KC in a lot of ways....let me clarify that thought. He is similar to KC in the way that he treats people, he is kind and considerate and a happy, busy, hardworking man. He likes to fish and crab and be with family and friends. He is different in the way that he looks and a few other subtle qualities. I, however, and reverted back to the same insecure weird young lady I was before meeting KC and I am constantly questioning everything about this new guy until I am sufficiently frustrated or sad or sure that New Guy is over it and that I will die alone. *ssiiiigggghhh* Oh, brain, why you gotta play a sista this way?!
 Yet, my perspective is changing, like I said. I was told once, at Camp Widow, that I should never look to fill the whole that KC left in my heart with another man. Though I never thought I would intend to do so, it was still important for me to hear. I should be cultivating a happy, rich, and fulfilled life on my own so that when the opportunity for male companionship presents itself, I will be ready to complement my already fabulous life with this little bit of icing. So, that is my new perspective! So simple, but takes a bit of work to really get there. I like my life! I haven't been able to really accept that since KC has been gone, but where I am right now, I am happy, again. I have an amazing new niece and nephew that bring me immense joy. I have a job that leaves me feeling accomplished and appreciated. I am doing very well in school and will have a Bachelors in Psychology by the end of Spring. I have fabulous friends who entertain me and enrich my life every day. And now, I even have this New Guy icing peppered into my life approximately once a week.  I am not going to over analyze things and wonder what I should say or how I should say it or read into text messages, that is all a bunch of bull shit. I live my life honestly and I trust the people in my life to pay me the same respect. New Guy has not given me a reason to not trust him, so I will trust him. It's only fair.
 The cool thing about this new perspective is that it is very freeing. I feel like I don't have to be a part of a game, or hide my feelings about KC, or worry about things which before were troubling me (like: negative thinking, self-doubt, contingent feelings about self based on inferences of others feelings about me) I just don't have to do that anymore. I am living my life the way that I want to live it; still cultivating my rich and happy life while allowing others to be a part of that if they want to, and if they don't, I'm ok with that too. I have survived far worse than rejection (from men, jobs, etc) and I feel strong in my convictions that I am a god person who deserves to be happy. So why not just let myself be happy?
 So that is my goal for the new year, keep it simple, get happy, live my life with love as my co-pilot. I think I am going to stick to this resolution! It just feels too good not to!
Happy Motherfuckin New Year, Ya'll!!