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‘Round Midnight 4

It’s becoming tradition. Every year since 2007, on New Year’s Day (or thereabouts) I’ve written a little post talking about all of the things that happened in the past year. (See previous years in review: 2006, 2007, 2008.)

Looking back on them is always an interesting experience. It’s kind of amazing to see how far I’ve come in the past four years, and fun to imagine what will change in the next year (hopefully good things!).

Anyway, without further babbling from me, here’s 2009 in review!

January – the month of friendships – Began to expand my social circle when Derek started working swing shift; found out about a few friends’ pregnancies; got U-Verse – actual television for the first time in like two years!; met up with my parents in Vegas
February – the month of reflection – Celebrated one year with Derek; got really into blogging pretty regularly; began thinking about the past and starting to grow from it.
March – the month of growing pains – Found out I was going to be an aunt; watched my younger sister start planning her wedding; started getting sick more often.
April – the month of missing you – Lost my great-grandmother; turned 23; continued to keep getting sick.
May – the month of admitting the problem – Realized my sicknesses were being caused mostly by psychological issues; began seeing a psychiatrist; pretty much hit rock bottom as far as being depressed and hating life. Not a good month.
June – the month of facing the problem – Started Lexapro for anxiety and depression; began biweekly therapy sessions with the psychiatrist.
July – the month of improving & looking ahead – Started feeling better for the first time in ages; began looking forward to the family vacation; Derek turned 29.
August – the month of family – Went to Florida with Derek and my family; met my little cousin, Alexis, for the first time; began to realize how much I love my grandmother and hope to be like her when I’m older; began to face some of the issues related to feeling out of place among my siblings.
September – the month of learning to live again – Started talk therapy with the psychiatrist; explored how I was living my life and what was important to me and Derek in our living situation; found out my ex was moving to China and tried to work out how I felt about it; met up with my parents and grandparents in Vegas.
October – the month of kiddies – especially RORY! – My niece, Lorelai, was born the day before my brother (her daddy) turned 28; decided to start volunteering at Kidspace; visited my friends in New York
November – the month of thankfulness – Withdrew from the online world a little to focus myself on life; spent a wonderful Thanksgiving with Derek and his family
December – the month of “home is where the heart is” – Stayed a week with my brother in Indiana; met Rory, finally, and fell in love – she’s the best niece ever!; visited my parents and grandparents; then came home to my Derek again… and my home.

Overall, this year was a lot less eventful than last year – that is for sure – but it was still a really important year. I dealt with a lot of things this year, a lot of very difficult things, even. But I’m already feeling so much stronger than this time last year, and I know I can only get stronger from here.

I’m looking forward to starting 2010. Farewell, 2009.

Tree Hugger

More and more often lately, I find myself becoming increasingly restless.

Part of the reason is because I’ve been sick the past couple of days – a nasty little cold. It kind of sucks not being able to get out of the house very much.

But I feel like another part of the reason is just that I haven’t really done anything with my life in a little while. I’ve just been going through the motions – getting up, going to work, going home, going to bed, lather, rinse, repeat – with very little to break up the monotony. Not that our life is necessarily monotonous – we do things a little different every day, of course – but outside of work I find myself not really doing a whole lot.

The other day I heard about Disney’s announcement that in 2010 they’ll be offering free admission to one of their parks for anyone who volunteers for a day (of course, with a few restrictions/caveats) – they’re calling it “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day.” I signed up for more info and decided to check out HandsOn, the volunteering network that Disney teamed up with for the opportunities they’d accept for free admission.

While perusing some of the opportunities, checking out what HandsOn is all about and just piddling around while I waited for some tests to run at work, I ended up on the website for LA Works, a Los Angeles-based volunteer network. “Cool!” I thought. “I bet I can find some really close to Glendale.”

The more I looked through the opportunities, the more I found myself wanting to apply to them, especially the ones that had to do with being an outdoor educational guide at children’s museums, leading nature walks for kids or mentoring teenage girls. I love kids, and I love spending time with them and helping them learn new and fun things. And I love the outdoors, which several of the opportunities offered.

Suddenly I realized — this could help to solve my restlessness.

I mean, volunteering is a great way to get out of the house, and of course it’s a great way to help out the community. In high school, I volunteered for several years at the local hospital – I worked at the information desk and directed visitors to other parts of the hospital. While I longed to have more interaction with the patients, and especially the kids, in the hospital, I was happy just to be able to get out on the weekends and help out in the community. Volunteering with kids — especially in situations where I’d be teaching them about plants and animals — sounds a lot more stimulating and fun, and the good feelings I had when I volunteered at the hospital would naturally come along too, of course.

So I sent interest emails to a couple of opportunities, and recently heard back from both of them. One is volunteering for Kidspace, a children’s museum in Pasadena, where I’d be working as an educational guide in one of their garden learning spaces, and the other is for a nature walk program for families, where I’d be either helping keep the group together on the walks or, if I’m lucky, leading a walk myself. Either way, they both sound amazing.

I’m really excited. I have to email the nature walk program back for more information, and I’m scheduled to talk to one of the directors at Kidspace on Monday. I’ll keep you updated on what happens! :)

Just Like Glass

I found out a couple weeks back, while at dinner with a mutual friend, that my ex is moving to China with his new girlfriend, apparently to try to start some business over there. I don’t know all the details.

Since I found out, I’ve been trying to wrap my mind around how I feel about the whole thing. For those of you who have been following my blog for a while (or if you do a search for ‘China’ on it), you know that for over a year, my ex and I were planning on moving to China together, but it never came to fruition, in part because of school-related difficulties and eventually because we moved to LA (and our relationship ended, duh).

So one of the things I’ve been feeling is this weird sense that his story continued as it was always going to go, with just a simple cast change. That’s particularly weird to me because it makes me sort of realize how replaceable I was in the grand scheme of things. While my life changed drastically after the breakup, he just simply cast someone else in my place. I know she’s different from me (in inummerable ways), but it just seems like, in this situation at the very least, she’s filling the same role.

I don’t know, it’s weird. I haven’t quite figured that one out yet.

To be honest, though, the overwhelming feeling I’m having is… well, relief.

See, my ex and I happen to have a lot of the same friends, both here in LA and in NY. While there wasn’t a whole lot of overlap in regards to seeing the NY friends, there was always a really good chance that he and his girlfriend would be at a get-together hosted by one of the LA friends, and that it would be awkward.

Not that I tried to make things awkward or anything — in fact, I pretty much strove for the opposite, as Derek and several of these mutual friends can attest to. Against my better judgment and the advice of several people, I would try to make polite conversation, both with him and his girlfriend. After all, I have no real interest in making enemies, and, although I didn’t want to start a friendship with him after all that he put me through, I did want to try to get along for our friends’ sakes. But, while she would generally be able to carry on a conversation, with him it was like talking to a brick wall. Okay, a little better than a wall, I guess — I’d get a few two-or-three word answers — but overall it just felt like a wasted effort.

Then again, my family members have told me that they kind of felt this way about trying to have a conversation with him the whole time I was with him. So maybe he’s just gone back to the status quo.

Anyway, the awkwardness of it all started to make it very uncomfortable for me to be in the same place as him. I started to dread my friends’ birthdays and other celebrations because I knew, if he and I were both there, things would just be stupidly awkward, despite my best efforts for something different. And then I would feel guilty about dreading their celebrations, because it’s not right to feel that way about an otherwise happy time.

So, when my friend told me of his plans, the overall feeling, and the one that has been the most clear, was that of relief.

No more dreading friends’ parties, no more wasted efforts on conversation, no more awkwardness. He’ll have his side of the world and I’ll have mine. And maybe that’s how it should have been in the first place.

And maybe this will help with some of my anxiety as well. Out of sight, out of mind, right? Maybe not the healthiest way of dealing with that whole can of worms, but it’s better than me practically having a nervous breakdown every time I’d be getting ready to go to a friend’s birthday party.

Explanation of this entry’s title: Ingrid Michaelson – Glass.