i'm darkness and light, bubbles and faerie wings.
i am sparkles and glitter, shadows and clouds.
i love purple, and faeries, and books, and music.
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 There’s not a whole lot in 2017 that I feel I need to look back upon. I’m not the only one who felt it was kind of a bummer of a year, but…
2017 was an interesting year for me. It was a year I needed. To reset myself. The first year in a long time that I didn’t work in an office, instead I went back into retail.
I needed that reset in my life, but I’m ready to move on again. I feel more centred, confident, less willing to take crap, and ready to tackle new challenges.
2017 didn’t end on a high note. All things considered it could have been worse. It wasn’t. I am thankful.
I made decisions this past year that made things better for me. I distanced myself from many things that were drowning me in negativity. I am on social media a lot less than I was. I barely even check twitter. I understand that people have strong opinions about things, especially political, but I chose to block a lot of that out. The world is becoming a little too toxic. You may choose to crusade one way, but I choose a different path.
I spent more time in my craft room this year than I have in the past. Part of this was because I had more time to do so. Part of it was because the crafting helped me in many ways.
I am not hopeful, or rather, full of hope, going into 2018. If I’m being honest I think I lost the ability to be hopeful years ago. I know that sounds sad, but it’s true. Hope just manages to get you high enough to hurt more when you are let down.
I feel mostly anxious and uncertain as this year begins. I know I want change, but I don’t know what I want to change. I do feel like there is a lot of change to come this year. I am tired of feeling trapped, so this year I want to shake things up and make sure that change does happen.
Work-wise, I don’t particularly want to go back to what I was doing (though I miss the people very much), and I know I am ready to move on from where I am now. Finding a happy-medium in the workforce will be difficult. But I’m ready. I will look. I will try new things.
I want to create more this year as well. I started learning watercolour painting in November and made all my christmas cards. They aren’t perfect, but I loved every second of that painting. I want to draw and write more, so I started a bullet journal so I can draw my own planner every week. And add colour, or illustrations as I please.
I want to run a 5k this year. FOR REAL. I don’t know when the snow will go away (I am thinking, late April) but this year I am feeling ready for this. I have been dreaming about it. Once I dream things repeatedly I know I am ready for it.
I am in this forever search for happiness. There is a lot in my life that makes me happy, but I want that happiness to spread into every part of my life.
I had my year off; a year I so desperately needed. I am reset. I am ready to ignite and restart.
I am going to make 2018 into a year I want it to be. It won’t be easy. It might be very messy, but I want to come out of this year knowing that I didn’t just settle because I had to. There are things I want to happen this year, and I will do my best to make sure they do.
I am 23 days away from turning 42 and I am ready to start this new 365 day story. Let’s do this.
per aspera ad astra
– through the thorns, to the stars
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Twenty years ago today, the girl whose parents were certain they would have to sell with the house, moved out, and into her first apartment with her girlfriend.
Twenty years ago.
My parents sold that house almost 5 years ago. I didn’t go with it. In fact, I’ve never moved back home since I moved out. (Ok, there was one week during a rough relationship patch that I went home for a “visit”. But that doesn’t count.
That first apartment was huge. It wasn’t in the best part of town. It was actually a slum of an apartment with cockroaches, and an evil landlord. It had questionable tenants, one of whom tried to burn it down when he was evicted. That prompted a move to a new apartment less than a year into this first one. A place we felt safer. A place I lived in for 6 years. A place that had a possessed bathroom that always had a flood. But my life changed, and grew, in those years. Relationships fell apart, and new ones were created.
Six years later I moved into a place with Shawn. We were robbed. We got married. Our place burned down.
We lived for a year in my in-laws’s basement.
We bought a house. We had two dogs. We still own this house, but now have two different dogs.
In this home we own, we have had downs and ups. We have grieved. We have laughed. We have grown together as a couple.
I have a lovely new kitchen.
Twenty years ago, one month before I turned 22, I moved out of my parents’ home and began my own life as a person.
I have made mistakes. I have learned so much. I have loved, lost, and lived.
This may seem like a trivial thing to most. An odd milestone to mark, but for me, a girl with anxiety so bad she couldn’t sleep anywhere except her own bedroom, this is an epic anniversary to celebrate. I still feel like a kid, scared of the dark, and the realization that 20 years have passed since I LEFT home is bewildering.
About two weeks after moving out we had a major ice storm here. Something that will also be celebrating a 20th anniversary soon. It was awful. Everything was ice. People were without electricity for weeks (or months!) And I survived that, as well as so much more in the past 20 years.
I do sort of hope that the next 20 years have fewer challenges though. Fewer challenges, and more whimsy. That’s what I hope for!
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Hi. My name is Cat, and this is my 16th blog post in 2017.
I have written this before but… I miss blogging. I never seem to have the time to do it though. And the past few years I haven’t felt like I have anything that I can write about. Sure, I have a lot of things to write about, but they aren’t things I want to write about online.
And yeah, stupid FB takes up all the tiny, micro-stories I have to tell. It’s easier to write a paragraph there than post over here, and link back to FB so people can read me. Because besides my parents, I am not even sure anyone else reads the blog anymore.
But it’s December and that means that it’s time for my Christmas look. So here it is. Hopefully I’ll post more this month. I have some plans. But you know how things go when I plan them… they don’t go at all.
So who know how December will play out.
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I love this time of year. Halloween everything, yo!
I have no cubicle to decorate this year. No desk or office space to decorate. First time in years. I had planned to dig out all the Halloweeny stuff from the basement to overload the house with spooky-goodness, but I have been in bed for most of the past three days, dealing with vertigo/dizziness that has had me in tears.
I have missed work. Missed out on a gorgeous fall weekend. And nothing is decorated.
But I got my blog theme updated on time. And now I’m off to bed because I AM going to work tomorrow. My head is finally not spinning, though quick movements aren’t appreciated.
I have been gone from my old job for almost a year. The end of this month marks the year anniversary of my last day in that life. I miss the people I worked with so much. To the point that when I did finally get some sleep this morning, I had the worst nightmare about visiting my old admin floor and no-one wanting to talk to me. Or acknowledge me. There was so much going on the dream that I woke up sobbing. I had been replaced, with a girl named Kitty (which I only realized the significance of after I woke up). Everyone I used to work with was so cold, and distant to me. And sometimes mean. And I felt alone, and abandoned. So alone.
So, yeah, I miss my friends most of all. Not the job, but the people. Badly. And being sick, and spinning, and stressed out because of that, equals stress dreams about my old job. Used to be stress dreams were about high school and elementary school. Like everything else though, they are evolving.
I miss friends that were (are) family.
I miss getting to decorate my workspace.
But it’s October, and I’m going to decorate my home and hopefully see some friends soon. We have something planned for almost every Saturday this month. I am excited! I love October so much.
Bring on the Halloween WHIMSY! *tosses candy corn like confetti*
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The helpful thing about journaling – whether on paper, or on this blog – is that I can reference patterns in my life. August and September seem to be months where my pain flairs and my mood drops. Pain and depression seem to be thrown at me between these two months. And this is all outside of the March 2013 PTSD issues. I haven’t even gotten to November yet, when I seem to have those triggers pop up.
BUT… I get tired of being tired, and in pain, and so sad that I feel like I can’t breathe. Sure hormones and medication (with/without) can factor into this, but mostly I find that this time of year is hard on my body and mind. And I need to watch out for that, and try and find ways to work through it.
I know when things are bothering me, even if I don’t think anything is bothering me. I know because all of a sudden I am plagued with an obsession with my hair. It’s wrong. It’s too long, too short, too pink, too blue, too MUCH. It has to change.
Earlier this month, I went to bed exhausted. I was sure I’d fall asleep right away but instead I tossed and turned for an hour. I got up and took my eyebrow piercing out. Went back to bed and fell fast asleep. I didn’t know I wanted to do that, or that I was going to do that. I just got up as if on autopilot and removed it. About 6 weeks before I marked the 12th anniversary of having it done.
This past week I have gotten up multiple times in the night, autopilot engaged, and cut my hair. A little bit at a time, but still enough to allow myself to fall asleep upon returning to bed. I knew I was going to change the colour soon, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet. But my hair was bothering me. Always noticeable. Always annoying me.
Today I cut almost all of my hair off.
I bleached it.
And I realized… I no longer want to do the Publishing certificate. Five (six?) years ago I had an idea about what I wanted to do to change the situation I was in. I went back to school. I was terrified. I was excited. I knew THEN that was what I wanted to do.
And I continued, slowly, through the courses. I had them as a distraction after the trauma. They gave me something to focus all my energy on. They gave me hope that I wouldn’t be stuck in the job I was in that wasn’t fulfilling me.
But then time passed. I got older. Life changed.
And now? I have moved on. I’m no longer interested in pursuing this. And yes, I had only two courses left and I’d be done. Thing is if I don’t want to do something, if I am 100% sure I do not want to do it? I can’t do it. You couldn’t pay me to do it. I think I’d end up destroying myself first. (That’s a lot harsher than I mean it to be.) I’m like a cat on a leash – I will NOT walk with you, stupid human. I will plant my feet on the ground and you’ll have to drag me.
And once I came to that realization, that I didn’t want to be in school anymore, I felt lighter. My chest felt less constricted. This isn’t the only thing I am having issues with right now, there are a couple of other things, but this one thing I can control.
So I withdrew from the courses.
And I dyed my hair.
And part of me feels as though I should feel disappointed in myself because I came so close to finishing something, but stopped. But I am not disappointed. I feel relieved. I feel refreshed. I have literally moved on from this in my head, and forcing myself to continue with something that I don’t want to do anymore wasn’t going to help anything. I lose nothing from this. I don’t want to work in publishing anymore. Not now, anyhow. I gained a whole bunch of knowledge and insight into the book world, and I am happy with that. I am happy that I challenged myself to learn something new.
But in the end I got what I, personally, needed from the experience and closed the chapter on that part of my life. I am content.
And my hair is short, and I feel like I can breathe a little easier. And I will continue looking at patterns in my moods and behaviours and work on figuring out what they are trying to tell me. And I think I will be happier in life that way.
But…maybe I could possibly stop wanting to chop all my hair off right before winter and decide I need to grow it out in the summer? Those are the complete opposite hair-lengths for those seasons! Argh! Me!
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Cat has
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