Ah. …a new year.

Despite it’s less than auspicious beginnings ( I felt kind of icky in the belly going into New Year’s Eve celebrations and champagne did not help; so the first of the year was most unpleasant and often found me moaning in the loo), I feel good about 2010.

A Decade gets it Due

I usually pretty impresses by the turning of a decade. Even though I kind of felt that this new decade was getting a bit of a raw deal. It seemed that not many people seemed top care that it is a new decade. I remember when I was younger watching the 1970’s turn into the 1980’s was a big deal and the dawning of the 1990’s was also pretty huge. Maybe after surviving the pressure of having to party because it really WAS 1999 and the birth of the new Millennium, that returning to another decade is just an afterthought, but for me, I took notice.

When 2000 rolled in, I didn’t even own a computer! I had never owned one. I worked on one, but for bookkeeping and graphics and creating interior design proposals and contracts, but not for anything else really. Every once in a while I would find myself at the office with some time to kill and the best thing I could find online would be an AOL debate chat that was usually filled with kids after school repeatedly asking “what age? what sex?”. Even then, early on, I would find my way to abortion debates so I could somehow find a way to bring up adoption.

1998 was Very Good Year- NOT!

Little did I know then, what the next ten years would bring. Two thousand was already different than I had imagined.

Before I had turned 30, in 1998, I had the idea that things were pretty much as they should be. I loved my job as an interior design assistant and believed the owner when she said that she was grooming me to take over eventually. While my mother was already taken by the cancer, her estate had finally settled and I had used that to buy my house. My divorce from my first husband was finally completed after aver two years of waiting and I was comfortable as a single mom to Garin, plus I had David.

David had been my best friend and boyfriend since right after Pat and I called it quits. To make a long story short, I adored him and was very happy. After almost a year of planning and saving, we had become engaged on my 30th birthday. I really felt that at least my karma was evening out. All the harsh things that had happened before; the loss of Max, my disastrous marriage, my mother’s death; they were all fading because David was the reward. My Millennium was supposed to be a continuation of that life.

While We Plan, God Laughs

Funny, though this thing called life. You never really can count on what you plan. I was really really happy from the night of my birthday until one week later. On that night, right before we were off to show off my sparkly new ring to his family and friends were we used to work together, David, after three and half years together, told me that he was gay. Still loved me, still wanted to marry me, but if we broke up tomorrow; he felt I should know, would choose a guy next time.

Let’s just say that while the weekend was very dramatic and surprising and not a happy time I wish to remember, in the end, I was not engaged any longer and the life that I thought was mine and I adored and was so happy with? Turned out I was just borrowing it for a while.

To say I was devastated would really be an understatement, but even in the very deepest midst of it, I knew that this absolute heartbreak would not kill me. I had already survived the loss of my own baby and, while I couldn’t eat and lost a ton of weight, I knew that I would get through it and I would be OK. I remember sometimes, all I could do was lie on the couch and just physically shake while tears would just weep out of my eyes; but I would say to myself “Everything happens for a reason ” Yes, I know I have mixed feelings about such phrases now, but it comforted me then. And it was, actually, true.

Like it’s 1999

By time the real party of 1999 rolled around I was in a better place, somewhat recovered, though very gun shy. That summer, a full year plus after David, I had given in to peer pressure and begun attempting to date again. By late summer, Rye, whom I had known as a friendly acquaintance-like, revealed himself to be ambiguously flirting and we started dating. I was so nervous about my own state of mind and how things might end, that if he hadn’t promised that he was planning on moving to the West Coast in like 2 months, I probably wouldn’t have ever accepted his invitation to dinner. I was comforted that we could have fun, I could “practice” being with someone else, and it would just be over when he left. By the Holiday’s that year, it was confusing, and I was still rather unsure of what was going on, but Rye hadn’t left yet. The best guess I had toward the direction of my future then was the echo of a mysterious voice in my head.

Karma and Voices

It sounds nutty but I will swear to my dying day that I heard it. I was pondering the meaning of our weird relationship one afternoon to my roommate over coffee in the kitchen, and I said to her, out loud, “I feel like he is here for a reason, though I don’t know what. I just don’t know what his purpose is..” And a real voice, in my head, said, “He is here for the children.” There really was no idea of children then, and the idea was rather frightening. I kept the voice to myself for quite some time.

Still, we dated, and by that New Year’s Eve he had a flu something awful. He was supposed to had worked, but couldn’t and was dying in my bed. I was running back and forth from a foo-foo party next door, to check on the dying boyfriend and then to entertain Garin who was 9 and deserving of some fun for the Millennium too. No, I wasn’t how I thought I would bring that new Century in and I had no idea what the next ten years would hold, but I had given up on Karma then and trying to do things the “right” way because that hadn’t worked for me either. By now, I had just given up and flung my hands in the air and accepted whatever was given to me.

Life Happens

Of course, Rye never left and even with some really rocky beginnings, we went on and decided to have Scarlett together. Since we had purposefully conceived and were creating this baby together, we moved in together and when Rye moved here, he brought his beloved piece of hacked and duct taped crap known as Frankenputer. Eventually, Frankenputer got hooked up to high speed broadband and I typed in adoption and hence, here I am with all that happens in life in between.

Totally different life. Completely new career. Same house, same neighborhood; but I love it even more now. I feel like in the last ten years, I found this life that was really supposed to be mine. These last ten years have been a journey.. of some really great times, and some really bad. In fact, just for kicks, lets look at some of the more dramatic highlights form the past ten years that fit in between regular life.

My Grandfather died. I got pregnant with my daughter on purpose ( that’s a biggie for me!) . I got laid off. I got fired. I got arrested. I got blackballed. I went bankrupt. I quit a job. I walked away from a job. I broke my arm. I had my repaired. I almost died when I broke my spleen. I got married. I had another baby son . I had two miscarriages. My son had open heart surgery. I found my other son who was adopted. I met my son. I began to write. I found my career or my career found me?

And through most of it all; I have been on here, this internet, this world and for some of you, sharing it all along as we wind our way through the valleys and mountains of this web.

Accepting What Life Rolls in Your Way

So my point, I think, of these musings tonight is to say; you know what? No, life does not always work out the way we think it will. And it certainly doesn’t always play out the way we have planned. And definitely there are some bad things that are bound to happen in the future to us all. It’s really unavoidable because that’s just what life is about and we shouldn’t try to avoid it and control it so much. We can’t really anyway, so it’s useless to try anyway.

This is not the life I ever thought I would have,. This is not the place that I though , that I could imagine, that I would be at now, at this time, at this place; but I can tell you that I really does feel like it is the life I am suppose to have. And even all the bad things, well, we got though them all and I know that while I sure didn’t really need all those life lessons, some were important and then others are more of life badges now. I know that Rye and I are much stronger for having gone through them together. I am actually really proud that we have gone through so much together and have built up such a full and really wonderful life for ourselves and our children, even if I never imagined it like this. It’s actually much better than I imagined. It’s real.

Really living is hard stuff. It’s not safe and protected. You can’t control it. You have to just take what life hands you and make the best of it somehow. Sometimes you find yourself in a good place with good people and all you can do is grab hands and hold on and run for as long as you can in the hot sun. Sometimes, you find yourself in dark places with insurmountable odds, and all you can do is try to place your back to the wind and keep breathing. There are so shortcuts, no guarantees, no dress rehearsals. All you can do is try to do your best every day, but sometimes that best will simply be accepting what hell the day will really bring in and trudging on though to the next goal. There is no happily ever after or when I grow up, just a new day and a new chance to begin again. And every day, I just keep breathing and I am thankfully for what keeps me going.

I think what keeps me going is just the idea of going….I don’t do resolutions because I personally feel they are just setting one up for failure, but I do like goals, so I have goals that I would like to get accomplished in the next years. I am looking forward to Kentucky in July for the Adoptee Rights Protest, I want to continue to prosper in my job. I am looking forward to attending Blogher and the next #140 Twitter Conference in NYC. I would love to fit another adoption conference or two in there as well. I want to get up to Albany this year to lobby with Unsealed Initiative again. I have a few ideas bumping around that need to come together regarding research and databases. I am excited about teaching the adoption classes. I would like to do more with video this year. I want to finish working on the pond in the back yard and get the outdoor bar looking swell. I would like to repaint allot of the house this upcoming year. That’s enough for now, after all it’s only January 3rd and I can’t book up all my time yet! I have to see what this year has in store for me still.

So while I know that there is no way I can imagine where I will be when 2020 rolls in, I looking forward to the journey and I’ll be, most likely, telling you all about it along the way.