What are You Doing New Year's Eve?

In the waning hours of 2010, I considered going out in response to a solid invitation to one party and the probability that any number of my friends would be ushering in 2011 in the ATown. In light of last year's epic fail, I had compelling reasons to attempt to start off the new year in finer form. I considered the old superstition that what you're doing as the calendar starts over sets the tone for the coming 12 months, and I certainly wanted to be on better terms with the impending '11 than I was on its decade-capping predecessor.

It ended up that, even though Reese came down with the flu earlier in the week, the family was able to make it to my parents' house for our belated Christmas celebration. This holiday confusion (otherwise known as the Christmess) does tend to make for a difficult time truly enjoying New Year's Eve. And as it turned out, with relocating my bed to the new house and the kitchen remodel, we were short sleeping arrangements at Mom and Dad's, so Anna and me made our trek across town to spend the night at my house.

And so it was that the final moments of 2010 ticked off the clock. Anna went to bed, and I lay in my own bed, listening to the pops and crackles of fireworks outside in the night sky. I lay in the darkness and let the sad lonely year ebb away. In the silence that followed, I could almost hear the freshness of 2011's arrival. Like a sudden rush of warm air distilled in a soft white puff again the winter night, it came. And with it, sweet hope. I lay listening to the way the air changed, to the way that the light shifted, to my own breathing. I felt suddenly empty; but emptied of the heavy burden of so much sadness and tragedy. Hollowed out as it were, like midnight spooned out the lead and left behind a smooth, dark place for good things to settle.

In the stillness, I prayed for this fragile new year. I prayed that its tender newness would be allowed to blossom into something wonderful. I prayed to God to keep my hands reaching out toward Him, toward hope, toward the belief that there is plan so much greater than what I've imagined I missed or lost or let pass me by. And so I closed my eyes against the clean night sky that was already making its way toward the first day of the new year. And I fell asleep with a prayer on my lips. At home. With hope.

The Truth

Right now, I miss Kudzu so much I can hardly breathe.

Emotional Pickpocketing

Yesterday was the Rockstar's last day. Last week, I went to his farewell outing - a bowling extravaganza filled with shouts and razzing and toasts and a definite sadness tinging the whole affair. A part of me absorbed it...felt sad because he is leaving, and after a year, I'd like to think I could call him a friend. But it was also the memory of all that I went through last year seeping from the corners of my mind. As the departure was unfolding, I could see little flashes of my own life layered over his. When he hugged me yesterday, and I wished him luck, I felt like I was talking to myself a little bit...a little bit letting go of that person I was then and wishing her luck as she tries to become the person she is now.

***
More and more lately, I've been feeling the quiet beginnings of the panic. The disrupted stomach. The irrational anxiety of anticipating "it." I went to the doctor last week who asked if I wanted to up my dosage. And I said no, I should try and do this. I should try and do this life thing without having to adjust my medication up and up and up. So I'm pushing through, pushing up the threshold of discomfort and willing myself to work through it, one deep breath at a time.

***
I turned 29 earlier this month. And while I flogged my coworkers for the lack of festivities surrounding my birthday, it was really me that caused the disappointment. It was really me who didn't celebrate myself. It was really me who let my birthday be a reminder of all the things I'm not, all the things I lack, instead of all the things I am and all the things I have. What an empty feeling to be consumed by absences on a day that should be spent building a totem of great memories and accomplishments.

***
My laptop has been a source of immense frustration of late. One of the hinges has cracked and the lid won't stay upright, falling instead into an almost horizontal position. On top of that, some part of Microsoft Office is malfunctioning, auto-launching, and utilizing 99% of my CPU capacity. And it's like, Really? Is everything in my life broken?

***
Yesterday, on the drive home, I felt restless. I shifted in the seat. I peered through the grubby windshield at the searing cerulean sky. I saw a few blue-black crows perched in the naked branches of a dying tree. It felt like someone might cue the classic Sergio Leone whistle in the background. It was a showdown between me and waiting. It's been so long on this precipice, me perched, angled forward, looking for what's next. And held back by the gravity of all that's happened. I'm waiting for something - something good and hopeful. Something that gives me an indication that there is a way out of this valley of the shadow of death and not just endless wandering.

***
We start looking at the weekends coming up through the end of the summer and the fall and planning out who has to do what when and where. I realize how scheduled we are with this and that family obligation - things I would normally look forward to, but now seem like just another outing that will perpetuate our togetherness. I could stay home, stay away, but even the thought of it starts the guilt to gnawing away at me. In my mind, coulds and shoulds and wants and needs get so tangled up that I don't know what to do. So I stay tied up in where I am right now, resenting all the hands on the other ends of the strings that are pulling me in every direction.

***
Despite my bravado, I realized the other day that there's almost no chance that I'll even be married before I'm 30. And that's okay. Really. It is. I know that. But sometimes - just sometimes - I want to let my guard down and say that's not how I imagined things.

***
Last week, I had a really, really super important client meeting with the client I landed awhile back. I thought everything went well. I was nervous leading up to it, felt pretty A-game in the midst of it, and relieved as soon as the meeting participants filed out the door. I headed from the office to have a beer with some friends. I missed a call from my boss while I was in the bar. I called him back to find that at least one of the participants was disappointed and felt like we didn't deliver. And that fragile euphoria came crashing down around me, and I felt 16 tons of disappointment fall upon my shoulders.

***
This weekend, I woke up early to go to the salon with Anna, and when I got back home, I said, "I have to take a nap." And it was true. I was bankrupt.

With every passing day, it seems there's emotional thievery going on. These unexpected strains slip in and steal little pieces of me. There are those things that I face everyday that I know I'm going to spend my time and energy and willpower on - some that I even choose to exert some emotional funds for. But these stealthy hands that swipe my reserves are tearing me down a piece at a time, leaving me penniless. I'm utterly broke, with nothing left to give and not even enough for myself.

Entrapment & the Waiting Place

In dreams, there are likely scenarios - loss of teeth, flying, falling, showing up to work naked. But in many of my dreams, there are also likely places. These places that I visit are sometimes real life places given a totally different context in the dream state. And sometimes, they are places I have never been except in my subconscious, but I know them. As soon as I see where I am, I have an automatic cue about the tone of the dream and what complexity my mind is trying to unravel.

Hotel Entrapment: In my dreams - like the one I had last night - I find myself in a hotel. It is an upscale hotel. The facade is a pale blond brick, stately and historic, and the interior is very modern with chrome and glass. It is a total contradiction, I know, but so it is. I have never been to this hotel or any hotel like it; its features are some strange combination of places and things I have seen without really categorizing them. Or perhaps it is entirely conjured during my sleep. I am a guest at the hotel, sometimes willing and sometimes seemingly forced there by an unknown incident. Whichever the case, once I find myself there, I wish to leave.

I am usually pursued by someone during my dream. Not in a classic thriller-film-chase, but in an anxiety-inducing lurking-in-the-shadows way. Although I may never see who is pursuing me, I know their whereabouts, and even though I take steps to divert myself from where they are, I still find myself in the same corridor. Passing the door as quietly as possible, heart hammering. I do not want to make a misstep here. Sometimes I wake up at this moment. Sometimes I escape into another corridor and begin avoiding a new location. But often, I find myself face to face with the one I want to see the least, a hand curled around my wrist, all paths to an exit blocked.

The Pit Stop: Late last fall, I took a trip to a sort-of nearby town for a day of team-building exercises with my chamber group. On the way there, we stopped at a gas station. It was a nondescript gas station, the kind that dots the two-lane country highways across the state of Georgia. In addition to the usual array of fountain drinks and cappuccino machines, they had a little counter that served up breakfast biscuits and the like. Perhaps it was because we were there for 10 or 15 minutes milling around, and I remember feeling a little listless and ready to get on with the show. Perhaps because it was a time in my life marked with a ubiquitous sense of limbo. Whatever the case, this little gas station has become the waiting place.

In my dreams, I am there and usually wearing a coat (it was bitingly cold that day). All sorts of different people come in and out - sometimes very familiar people and sometimes those acquaintances who lurk on the fringes of your memory. At times, I dream that I am driving down the road and, no matter which direction I'm going, I must stop. Even though I could have a full tank of gas and just eaten, I am always compelled to stop at the waiting place. I never quite know why I'm there, so the dream is fraught with a restless energy, a sense of looking for a sign to tell me what to do next. And at times, I reluctantly give in to the idea that maybe, all I'm there to do is wait.

You Don't Even Have to Give Me a Penny

* Another 4:45 wake up call tomorrow

* Kudzu, and how he seems to know right now that I need him, so he's hanging out with me on the couch

* That John Mayer's latest blog entry further convinces me that we would be really good friends

* Feeling really good about going paperless on my Chase credit card statements because they gave $5 to the World Wildlife Fund because I made the switch

* What's going to happen with Miranda and that devilish rake Jack in the book I'm reading

* My six-month review at work which was unbelievably good...maybe I can do my job

* Friends...far away and across the table tonight. It's good to have 'em.

* The Olympics protesting...I can't quite decide what I think is the best course of action. Read the article unearthed by HAT for an interesting perspective

* Whether to wear pantyhose or go bare-legged to the meeting with the law firm tomorrow. My legs look dreadful.

* Haircut plans. It is time. I am scheming.