New Year

"I don't know where I'm going, but I sure know where I've been."

I can't believe I'm quoting White Snake, worse yet, I'm conjuring images of the chick on the car and you know what I'm talkin' about if you grew up in the 80s like I did. But there it is. It's the thing that popped in my head. And I live with this brain every day. Oh god, I'm rambling. Let's see if we can rescue this train, there is a point.

Every year I grow more and more introspective in the week between Christmas and New Year's. I try to look back on where I've been, what I've done, and where I'm going. But this year, it's different.

In most areas of my life I have done some amazing things. This is the year that I truly started to FEEL like a mom. Last year it was still so new, so different. But now, I am officially a mom. With all the glory and yuckiness that entails. Some where in this last year I realized that my son was going to look at me, look at my life, look at the choices I made, look at the path I've taken and it made me pause. I realized that my life would teach him something and what it needed to teach him better damn well be good.

My timing in life is never very good. I make decisions at the oddest times, when it makes the least sense in the traditional view point. It's been my way. A lot of the time people think I make snap decisions but that is the furthest from the truth. I am a thinker to the point of exhaustion. I hold my cards close to my chest. I don't share. I don't want your opinion. I don't want your insight. I protect my thoughts like Fort Knox, which is so contrary to maintaining a blog. But onward ...

So I go along and I'm thinking and thinking and thinking. Year after year I would feel as if something just wasn't quite right. I was becoming more and more separate from the path that I wanted my life to be. I knew it. I felt it. I dropped very subtle and not so subtle hints. But I didn't change anything. It just wasn't the right time.

Then these little eyes came home to me and I realized, he was watching. The time was right to make a change. To be bold. To make the tough decision. To speak the truth that I was no longer happy in my marriage. my husband is my best friend. but at the core level we are too different. we are the definition of irreconcilable differences. to go into the details in this space, even as open as I am with my life, would be wrong and serve no purpose. trust that this was not an easy decision nor a decision we made light nor are we going to destroy each other in order to separate.

you have read the turmoil that this has caused in me over the last few weeks. i am deeply depressed, sad, overwhelmed with fear yet silently resilient knowing that life will go on and it will be better. better for me, better for my husband, and ultimately better for these little eyes that watch my life.

this year is no longer about making resolutions or goals or promises. i have painted myself into the corner. i have to take action and move forward boldly. i am out of options. i have shown my cards and now i need to play them. so here is to the new year, may it be full of beauty and boldness. god, i'm scared.