OK so you all are out there partying and I’m doing what I do best, sitting in my cat pajamas eating all natural whole cranberry sauce and being a jerk on the internet while still in my polka dot rain boots. Eventually someone will kick my ass and it will feel like a real party to me.

Or a date.

I really need to get out more.

Or get more cats

I don’t normally go in for resolutions, probably because they remind me of pie crust promised (“Easily made and easily broken“). However, I do look to the past year and try to tie up any loose lessons ends from it. I want to grow beyond painful times and be grateful for growth and blessings. I suppose it’s an inventory of the past years stock. I’m sure I will have missed much, but this is a good beginning.

 Really sucky things that have happened this year:

• Jeff’s illness and subsequent death.
• Repeated hope, and disappointment of answers to my health issues.
• A serious Bipolar relapse.
• Learning that I have Bipolar 1 and not 2
• The loss of some income.

I have learned, again and deeper this time, the necessity of telling people how they impact your life, to follow through, to not run and how to be committed to a cause even if it’s uncomfortable through Jeff’s fight with cancer and death.

I learned that trying is more important than the outcome from picking up the journey to get answers to my health problems. Some things just can’t be untangled.

I’ve learned that relapsing from Bipolar isn’t failing, how we handle it determines its failure or success status. It’s not illegal or immoral to have a mental illness and it isn’t from laziness or narcissism.

Learning that my disorder is Bipolar 1 taught me humility. There was always a sense of pride about having 2 instead of 1, secretly and deep within myself. I didn’t choose which disorder to have so I certainly am not given credit or fault for having a mental disorder or the type of disorder . It simply is what it is, neither good nor bad.

Losing, or giving up, a small portion of my income was a fear that drove me, that kept me in the home I was in for twelve years. Realizing that somethings are more important and dangerous than a lowered income and to ask for help doesn’t make me a lapsed parent. In fact, it teaches my child that her safety should always come first.

Really amazing things that have happened this year:

• Moving
• Meeting new people
• Elizabeth’s break through.
• Learning a lot about my health.
• Emotional safety.

The move was sudden, furious and direct. How it happened showed me in a real way, that something or someone larger than myself and my brain could be trusted and gave a shit about me and my children.

People. I love people. I love their stories, their opinions and their ideas. Meeting the characters and stunning people I have met this year through blogging and other social mediums has been a healing balm to me. I hope, in some small way, I can do the same for them.

After four years of therapy for PTSD from extreme bullying, Lizz had a sudden break through watching Alye Pollacks video. She learned she did nothing to deserve her abuse, there isn’t something about her that is just weird or terrible. She has made more progress since that afternoon than she has made all the years before. She made her own video and plans on making a follow-up video to show help is out there as well as healing.

Through all the testing to find out what I do have, we learned there’s a lot of terrible things I don’t have, like lupus, breast cancer, HAE, etc. Yeah, it was disappointing to be lifted then dropped so much, but finding out that these diseases are not it, should cause me to be grateful.

Through all of these things, and by the people I have met teaching me and accepting me, learning that there are people who it’s safe to divulge myself has been amazing. I love reading blogs, tweets and posts at the different social networks where people have been candid and open, sharing of themselves honestly. Just when I think I have met every asshole in the world, a fantastic, sparkling and gem-like person shows up at the last-minute.

So, to you, my readers and friends: Thank you. This is one crazy person who knows just how lucky she is to have been blessed with each of you. I hope, sometime, to be able to bless you and hear you out.

Much love~