Day 15: So the world is ending...

... The Mayans were right and fire and doom are reigning down -- what do you you most regret having left undone in your life?

Hm.  Well, I could launch into another thing about "I don't have regrets, blah, blah, blah".  But that'd be a cop-out.  This question doesn't really seem to be about that.  It seems to be more of a "what do you wish you'd had/made time to do" sort of thing.

If the world ended, right now, right this very minute, I'd regret:

that I never got to spend an entire weekend with OBF.
that I never actually finished getting a college degree.
that I never had a career I was fulfilled by.
that I never got to travel to all the places in the world that I want to see.
that I never quite managed to make a beef wellington.
that I didn't finish the quilt that's been sitting on my end table for 2 years now.
that I didn't take any of my art to a level that I'm satisfied with.
that I didn't write a book, like everyone's always telling me I should.

I'd regret... That I just didn't have enough time, or resources, to do all the things I want to do.

Day 14: What do you want to let go of as 2013 comes our way?

I've been busy with family and holiday stuff  (and birthdays) over the past week.  But, it's the dawn of the new year, and I think that this is a really great time to answer this question.  It's been on my mind, in the back of it, as I've been dealing with the stress, the drama, the being super busy, and most of all the depression.

See, winter holidays are a time of year that brings up a metric ton of my historical baggage.  It is a two week long emotional flashback.  And the result of that, is that I become an insecure, fearful, anxiety laden, mess of abandonment issues.

Being a December baby, smack between Christmas and New Year's, meant that I always sort of fell through the cracks.  I didn't get birthday parties with all my friends, because they were off doing holiday things with their families.  I didn't get birthday presents; I got Christmas presents and hasty "oh, this is for your birthday too".  I didn't get to be the focus of attention because everyone was always caught up with the big holidays.  In fact, most of the time, my own father would forget my birthday.  And the times he didn't forget, I'd get a phone call a day early, or late, because he was off on business.  My mom would remember, but there was something lacking in "I'll cook your favorite dinner, and we'll have cake with just us girls".  I have never had a surprise party thrown on my behalf (not that I really want one, but, the theory of the thing would be nice).  I have always had to remind people, and try to plan myself, and fight for other people to make me feel special.

Christmases were never particularly pleasant either, even without the looming threat that I'd end up forgotten once again.  Divorced families can leave one with a sense of not really having family at all.  There's always someone missing, someone you want to see, and spend time with and share happy moments with, that you can't.  And living on the other side of the country from extended family means that most of the time, the number of someone's missing is large.  On top of that, I've spent just about every holiday in existence suffering from some sort of ailment.  The flu, pneumonia, chronic pain whatever, bronchitis, sinusitis... It all seems to hit me a few days before Christmas.  Add in a few break ups over the holidays, and at least one death... Well... Yeah.

My holidays are spent with an ever present sense of dread.  And by having that dread, I tend to make bad things happen.  I have so many fears and insecurities now, that they've turned into self fulfilling prophecies.  Because I expect the holidays to suck, they suck.  Even if everything would normally be fine, I am wound so tight that I pick fights, drown in depression, seek out more attention than is reasonably possible and set myself up for the disappointment inherent in such a thing.  I lose the ability to see the good things for what they are, and be grateful for them.

And that, all that baggage, is what I'd like to be able to let go of.  I'd like to be able to, at least a little bit, let the past be the past and have the present be the present.  I'd like to be able to let go of the fear that I'll be forgotten about; the insecurity in thinking I'm not important; and the anxiety and depression over who I want to spend special moments with, but don't get to.  I want to let go of the certainty that I will be abandoned, that I will be neglected, that I will be... Alone.

Because I'm not any of those things.  I have wonderful people who love me, make time for me, and try to make me feel as special as they think I am.  And it's high time I made that the certainty I hold onto.

Day 13: Movie...

Here's the full prompt:  What well-known person (actress, politician, comedian, talk-show hostess, what-have-you) would play you in a movie of your life in 2012?  Why this person?  And what would be the movie's title?

I'm skipping this one.  Sorry guys.  But there's no one I can think of who would play me in a movie.  I can't even fathom a movie about my life.  At all.

Day 12: When did you feel power within your pain this year? Describe the moment and all it's sensations and emotions.

I've been struggling with this prompt.  You see, pain and I have had a very long and complicated relationship over the years.  Pain has been a lover -- pleasurable and sensual.  Pain has been an enemy -- fierce and fearsome.  I have both embraced it, and fought against it, with my whole self.  But... I don't know that I've ever felt power within those dynamics.  In fact, I'm quite certain I haven't, despite knowing that I'm actually quite powerful over them.

The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I spent the day with OBF helping a friend of his with a film shoot for a school project (film school).  That day started at 4:30am, for me.  I normally go to bed at 4am, so having to get up then, was hard enough in and of itself.  But that day was a bad pain day, for my normal chronic pain bullshit, on top of it.  And I mean bad.  Add in time of the month cramping... And I was in agony just sitting still.  But there I was, lugging stuff up and down stairs to get gear to film sets, helping hang lights, playing gofer, helping out in any way I could.

I was eating advil like it was candy.  I was going through cigarettes like they were air.  And the whole time, a battle was raging in my head.  Pain was launching an offensive, trying to get me to submit.  Trying to get me to give up a part of my life, yet again.  And I was arming the ramparts in preparation for the siege.  I would not let it win, I vowed to myself.  I was not going to be weak in front of all these people that I had never met before and didn't know.  I was not going to "rain on the parade" by needing to go home early.  I was not going to be a waste of space by sitting around on my ass doing nothing.  I was going to be productive, and useful, and have fun, even if it meant gritting my teeth so hard I broke them (again).

OBF's attempts to get me to take things easy were spurned.  Especially after I suffered the embarrassment of the security guards for the shoot site asking me if I was okay, after I'd noticeably slowed when climbing the stairs in front of them for the 10th time (20th? I lost count).  Admitting any weakness, admitting any vulnerability, would have shattered the mental front I was putting up in order to maintain functionality.

My body was screaming at me.  It was yelling, and wailing, and working against me with every movement.  It's assault on my resolve was monumental.  Like something out of those Iwo Jima movies that everyone likes to make.  But I held out.  I was, to mix my military event metaphors, Sparta, in the face of the Persians.

The thing that let me hold out was... Well, it was anger.  I took every ounce of anger I had at my life being impacted in such a negative way, every bit of resentment over the embarrassment of not even being able to climb stairs without someone noticing my difficulty, every bit of hate for my body's rebellion, and I held onto it.  I breathed life into it.  I nurtured it.  I let it be my strength.  I took power in anger.  I let it fuel me.  I was smiling, and I was friendly, and jovial, and all the things that you're supposed to be in social situations, but underneath... Underneath I was a seething ball of anger.  And anything I could use to add to that anger, I took.

Fueling that anger on my own, however, is work that I'm not used to yet.  I'm not an angry person, generally speaking.  Being angry usually scares me.  So I have a hard time finding ways to keep myself angry.  And when I was struggling to maintain that anger, OBF joked, in a loving and affectionate way, about me being a slowpoke, and I seized on it.  Being made fun of, in a caring manner, for my infirmity was something I'd never experienced before.  But it worked.  It was a bellows on that furnace I was stoking.  And it helped.  The shock of it, and the momentary sparks of rage, gave me the strength to pull myself up again, and re-man those ramparts, and rain vats of boiling oil down on the pain attempting to storm my gates.

I had power over my pain, then, through that anger.  Despite the broken glass feeling in my joints, despite the sharp tearing feelings in my back, and thighs, I had power.  And I was using it.  I was using it to hold off that horde until I was somewhere it was safe to lose the battle.  And I did.  Barely.  I couldn't help with putting all the gear back in the truck at the end of the night, simply because I didn't trust myself on the stairs any longer, but I was still useful, and I was still functional, even if I had to fight back the urge to cry as I leaned against OBF's chest and admitted that I just couldn't carry any more shit.

By the time we were in the truck heading home, almost 18 hours after I'd gotten up in the morning, I was holding myself together with the thinnest of threads of willpower.  I knew I needed to be able to get up the stairs to my apartment when we finally got home.  I knew that if I lost the battle before that point, someone would have to carry me.  And I would not suffer that indignity.  Under no circumstance was anyone going to carry me up my front steps.  I would do it myself, dammit.  Even if it killed me.

And I did.  I may have all but collapsed when I got in the front door.  I may have needed help getting undressed and into a hot bath.  And I may have let out sobbing cries of agony as LIBF helped me out of my shoes and my jeans.  But even after an almost 20 hour day on my feet, lugging and carrying and bending and twisting and reaching and stretching...

No one had to carry me up those stairs. 

Day 11: What was your biggest moment of joy this year?

Spring break, this year, kiddo got sent off to my Mom's, and LIBF and I had some time to ourselves.  We also, coincidentally, had some extra cash for once.  So we decided to take a vacation --not a long vacation, nothing elaborate.  But we decided to, finally, go explore the Olympic Peninsula a bit.

We drove out to Port Angeles in the middle of the week, and snagged a hotel room for 2 nights.  And the next day, we went out to find ourselves a decent hike.  And hike we did.  To the top of Marymere falls, and back, before lunch.  I have pictures galore of that in my G+ account, somewhere.

After the falls, we had a good half day left to burn.  So we decided to just drive along the coast, see what there was to see.  We were tourists, after all.  What else was there to do other than sight see?  So we drove out to the tip of the peninsula -- got ourselves a little lost in an Indian reservation, because there is no cell service out there at all, and our phones' maps weren't working properly because of it.  And on the way back, we decided to stop at one of the little beaches that we'd seen along the way.

It was low tide when we finally found a good spot to pull off.  We were the only people on the rocks.  And there were tidepools.  Tidepools with starfish, and hermit crabs, and limpets, and anemones, and even some with little fish swimming around in them.

I was a little kid again.  I was dragging LIBF from tidepool to tidepool by his sleeve, voice high and girly calling out "Ooh!  Lookit this!" when I'd see another little bitty living thing moving around.  I was giggling over slipping on the rocks a little, and giggling over all the bitty sea creatures, and giggling at the sand and salt stinging my face in the cold wind.  When I picked up a hermit crab and let it crawl around in the palm of my hand, I squealed as it pinched me.  I was happy.  I was so happy, I was proclaiming how happy I was.  And LIBF was happy to see me happy, and he laughed at my childlike exuberance.

I didn't mind that I was getting my shoes wet, or that the cuffs of my jeans were sand encrusted.  Actually, the opposite.  I loved it.  My hands were freezing cold from the ocean water, but I kept bending down and scooping things up anyway, finding perfect limpet shells in the sand to sneak into a pocket to take home.  Those shells are on my desk right now, actually, reminding me about that day.

When we were finally too cold to stay out on the beach anymore, and the sun was starting to sink a bit, we got back into the car and headed in the general direction of the hotel.  And on that drive back... Driving from bright sunny, windblown shores, edging along the winding road edged with craggy beaches into storm clouds over the mountains... We rounded a corner and there was a rainbow so strong, so bright, that it looked as if someone had drawn it across the sky in neon lights.  It took my breath away, it was so beautiful.  And in that moment... I was joyful.  I was joyful to the point of tears.

The whole day had been wonderful, beautiful, and filled with awe and amazement.  And that rainbow was the thing that pushed me over the point of "happy," and into "overwhelmed with joy".

Day 10: Create an imaginary character you could have used in your life this year. Tell us about this being.

Oh gosh.  I could go so many different ways with this.  But...

In my imaginary ideal world, there is a being that I would probably title a "fixer".  Not a fixer in the mafia sense, necessarily, but someone who I can go to and tell them everything that's bothering me, everything that's frustrating, everything that hurts, and their job is to fix it for me.  Kind of like a bodyguard for drama.

My fixer would be a big, burly, stoic looking guy.  He'd dress all in black, and wear sunglasses 24/7, and have a short-ish ponytail, hair pulled back slick against his scalp.  Clean shaven to show off the strength of his jaw, for intimidation purposes.  He wouldn't be pretty, either.  And he'd follow me around, just sort of lurking in the shadows, far enough away as to not be a nuisance, but close enough that I could summon him with a snap of my fingers to deal with anyone, or anything, that was giving me grief.

When my ex husband started pulling drama this year, my fixer would have intimidated the crap out of him for me, so I didn't have to deal with all the legalese and freak-outed-ness.  When OBF's wife started pulling drama, my fixer would have set her straight, and saved me (and OBF, and LIBF) a shit ton of pain and suffering.  My fixer would have dealt with my mother, and kept her from being a condescending, rude, bitch at my sister's wedding.  He'd have gotten LIBF's grandmother to get herself a damned financial planner instead of making the messes she's made that we had to clean up.  He'd have dealt with LIBF's mother's shit too, because that ended up in my lap as well.  He'd intimidate my kid into doing his homework on time and without temper tantrums.

My fixer... Would be my brick wall against the rest of the outside world.  So that I could focus on the things that I wanted to focus on, instead of the things I ended up having to focus on.  A protector, standing over me, with a constant and persistent "don't fuck with tess" written all over his face.  And his biceps.

Day 9: What made 2012 particularly different from other years of your life?

Now that's a good question.  In some ways, it feels like this year has been exactly the same as the rest.  All the struggles are, at their core, essentially the same.  All the triumphs are also, at their core, essentially the same.  But there's got to be something that sets this year apart, somehow.

This year... This year was the first time that LIBF finally decided to explore other relationships outside our own.  He's always had the option, but he's never really had the interest before.  And, honestly, while I'm content for everyone to do whatever makes them happy, I'd held a bit of guilt over the idea that I was "having all the fun" while he was being the dutiful boyfriend and staying monogamous.

Some of that guilt comes from the mono-centric society that we live in.  Judgement that non-monogamy is "bad", that it's "cheating", etc..  Some of it came from the idea that the drama that I always seem to find myself embroiled in (despite hating said drama) was an unfair strain on him.  Some of it was totally irrational bullshit about "inflicting" my relationship orientation on him, despite the fact that he's been entirely supportive and even encouraging of it in me.

But I got to return the favor, finally.  I got to be all happy and giddy over seeing him with someone else.  I got to be the same sort of confidant that he's been to me about relationship stuff with another person.  And it added to what we'd already had in such a way that, even though his foray didn't work out well, I think we're both still really happy he did it.

You know, I wrote about this elsewhere, in an entirely different context.  And the thing I wrote there, that I really feel needs to be repeating, is that... LIBF's testing the water on not being monogamous reinforced the idea that not only are he and I building a life, and a business together, but we're friends too.  That "being friends" with a partner can sometimes get forgotten about, with all the day to day junk and the stress over finances and family.  It can fall through the cracks a little, especially when you quite literally spend 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, sharing space with that person.  It's easy to take someone for granted when they're never more than 2 rooms away from you.  And so these little reminders that, above all else, even above being romantically involved, LIBF and I are friends too... Mean a lot.  And I got that this year.  And that's different.