And so it begins...or actually ends

It's bound to happen. Relationships end, friends lose touch, family moves apart. Time is our best friend and our worst enemy.

I have been fighting for so long to hang on to the things I want in my life. Like a mountain climber clutching the side of a mountain for dear life, I have dug my nails into the things I want so badly that I didn't see them crumbling right out from under me until suddenly (or that's how it seems) they have fallen apart. They are gone and I'm not sure I can get them back.

Mostly for me I've realized as I've gotten older, there is SO little we have control over. We can't control the weather or other people or - well, pretty much anything. We really have control over so very little in our own lives. I know it's not how we act but how we REACT to things. It's all in our attitude, our perception our whatever, but frankly....I'm kinda not really digging the fact that I seem to keep dealing with "endings" of one form or another.

I was happy and content in my life. I woke up everyday and did the same thing over and over to the point that people could and did call me predictable. Then something inside me decided that life wasn't good enough any longer so I pulled up stakes and changed my life pretty drastically.

At first it was all shiny and new and I was again happy and content. Then again, one day I woke up to discover that once again, it wasn't enough, there was something missing....something not quite right with who I was and where I was so I again made changes. Again I was happy and content but had this weird sort of heightened sense of reality that this too won't last. As soon as I am comfortable and happy with my madness, this too will change....and slowly over the last year it's happened again. This time however, seemed to be a shorter amount to time that spanned between the "I'll make changes and everything will be good again" and "wow, this isn't what I want at all, something has to change" time frame.

Is it because I'm older and dare I say "wiser"? Is it because I've had some things come into my life over the last year that I really wanted to stay and without my control, they have slowly dwindled and left without me making that decision? Or is it because I'm deciding much quicker that I don't have to wait for things to change, I can go ahead and make that happen? Either way, it's happening faster and thus...it begins again...but really that means things I like/enjoy/want in my life are ending and there is nothing I can do to stop it.

I think we had an amazing summer/fall this year and I loved that until this very last weekend, we were coat less and open toe shoes were still being strutted about like it was the middle of July. All of a sudden, we have gone into the boot/closed toe season and I feel like I wasn't quite ready. Is it because I fought it? I stubbornly dug my proverbial head in the sand and refused to accept that summer/fall was indeed over? All I know is here I sit, the middle of November, reflecting back on this year and trying like hell to not COMPARE it, but to look at it for what it was/is and how little time is left to try to make it be something that won't feel like a complete black hole of suckyness to end this year.

I feel really disappointed by this year. I had high hopes for it...I mean I was coming into this year with hope and anticipation and plans of it being a continuation of the last year and planned on riding that high through this year. I wanted not only my personal relationships to grow and flourish but I really thought my professional life would grow and bloom in many new ways that would not only enhance me from a challenging work focused perspective, but a financial one as well. I imagined I would finally be in a place of respect and financial wellness for myself that is LONG overdue and again, without my control, none of that really happened. Oh I was given new "opportunities", that's always good, but opportunities need to have rewards for a person on a personal level as well as a financial level and I don't know how to mesh that up when I have no control over it. It's just....disappointing.

Also, it's been a hard year for some of my very close friends...there have been job losses, long term relationships that ended and new additions to already stressed families and I want to help them all but find that by trying to maintain everyone else's life, it drains my life immensely and nothing is in place to refill that for me. I'm like that little buoy that's tied out to a mile marker that serves a purpose but no one is sure exactly what it is - but it is important.

And now the holidays are upon us. I reflect on all I'm really thankful for: family, friends, my health, my jobs.....I'm lucky. I'm super lucky, but yet, there is this huge missing piece, this huge open part that doesn't seem to have any place. How do you try to fix what you can't even see?

I miss the relationships I had last year, I feel responsible for the loss because I've been pretty self focused trying to figure out whatever path it is I'm suppose to be on and the harder I try to find it, the more confused it seems to be and thus I've ended up losing some relationships because a person only has so much to give. My well is dry. I miss those people that I could just BE myself with, that do simple things like having a coffee or seeing a movie was enough. Feels like everything has to be a bigger production - schedules have to be coordinated, families have to be notified and all the life changes have pulled us away from each other either because of relationship additions, complications or moving far away.

And so it begins...the ending that I've been fighting to not have happen...is actually happening right in front of me and down I fall.....to the bottom of the mountain only to pick myself up and try again.