2010: Year in Review

The thing about the New Year I find so interesting is the way you can look back at the big picture of your previous year and occasionally see patterns. It's like this year the dissonance between all of my old thoughts, patterns, lies and behavior collided violently with the new creation I am through Jesus and the new life he has been calling me to live. It's been a year of uncovering what I know to be true and the difference between what I know the lies that I react to in my everyday walking around life. It's been exhausting, refining and often very hard. But I'm finding hope for the new year and trying to move forward holding onto that even if I can't quite see the end of this struggle yet.

See, the reason I don't make resolutions is that I suck at them. I did barely any of these for longer than 3 months.
Although I did pretty good on the no drive through thing for awhile. But sliding back in was my downfall. It's a good one to revisit I think.

I started realizing, and really working through the fact that getting healthy was about so much more than losing weight and wearing smaller pants.
I lost some weight, I gained some weight, I worked hard at relationships and I completely ran away from some relationships. I started realizing just how intensely paranoid I was about any and all relationships and to be honest just paranoid in general.

I flirted with an angry and cynical Bethany that I knew I didn't want to be. Sometimes, I flirt with her still.

I began what I can see now was the slow roll down the hill into what is now an intense withdrawal from relationships and human interaction of any kind. I had stopped feeling safe months before I could put the words to what I was feeling. I've felt for many months as if I've been unraveling slowly from the inside out.

I hid in the halls of Hogwarts and slowly worked on plowing through 52 books this year, I didn't hit 52, but I got close. I learned that pretending to be ok doesn't make it true and often you end up more damaged than if you would have let it all hang out in the first place.

Oh, and I had a FLOOD in my HOUSE. I honestly feel like that happened about a million years ago but really it was less than a year which is INSANE to me. But the good news is I got new flooring and bathrooms and all sorts of junk out of it for my deductible and a lot of exhaustion on my (and ok, Pete's) part. The flood sort of forced me to ask people for help, which if you know me isn't one of my spiritual gifts, like at all.
(I think I might make it my One Word for 2011 actually)

I started recording one (or several) good things a day and posting a Good Thing month in review post, which has been a lot of fun. As someone that can often see only the darkness in front of her this has been like fresh air.

I turned 31, which felt weirder than 30 and more internally climactic for me than 30 ever did.
For my birthday Pete FINALLY made the move to Cincinnati and into his basement "apartment' in my house!
It's sometimes weird living with a boy (and I use living with in the strictest platonic roommate way possible) but mostly hilarious and fun and reassuring because if there is a freak accident and I split my head open I won't languish slowly bleeding to death for 3 days...or you know...something like that.

I started to uncover exactly how deep my issues with relational abandonment ran and just how damn broken that made me feel and act.  I learned again and again that even when I can't hear or see him God still moves. I started to try to believe that there are people that will still be there when I need them to be if I can only realize they might not be the people I thought they would be.

I learned that sometimes my words weren't adequate, or even more lately I don't have the words in me to share. But other people do, so I just use their words while my heart tries to recover.

It was a good, hard year. I'm hopeful about some decisions I've made for 2011 and hopeful for how I can start to repair the damage I've done to myself and the valid damage that others have done to me this year. Because I'm just over it already and I want it to be better. I want to be better.

Resolutions

In 2003 I made a New Years Resolution to never make another New Years Resolution again. I've kept it every year since. But I think I might break it this year.
2009 was a pretty big year for me. But we've already covered that.

I'm thinking that I would like to make a few resolutions for 2010. I want to say that I will accomplish them; but I have a history with not following through on things in my personal life so I'm scared. I want to be upbeat and positive, I want to totally believe in myself. But I'm not, I don't. But here are the things that I'm going to try to do this year:

• Savings

I have been pretty good at staying out of debt. With the exception of my mortgage and student loans I have $0 in debt. I have no credit cards except for my bank card that comes right from my checking account. But I absolutely suck at saving money. I suck at it big time. If I have a quarter I'll find a gumball machine that I need a gumball from. The only time I'm good at savings is when I'm imminently under pressure to have the money to pay for something (a trip, taxes, tires etc.). But mostly what happens is I don't pay something that month and make up for it the next month.
This is a system that for the lack of a better phrase that has served me well for the last almost 6 years (which is when I paid off all my credit card, car loan etc. debt).
But owning a house has gotten me a little scared straight. More to the point, property taxes that I have to save up for because I don't escrow them and being legally responsible for an expensive asset have scared me straight. I hate feeling like I'm missing out on something because I don't want to or can't spend the money on something, but I'm learning to realize that I'm not really missing out on anything, there are ways around it or a way to just not feel like I'm missing out.
So for 2010 I'm going to save money. $50 a month at first, building it by $5 a week after that if possible. Even if it's not much I have to start somewhere. I can't wait until I have $700 to put in a savings account to start saving, I just need to start somewhere.
Extra money that I make through working at the book store and dogsitting will go straight to savings. 100% of it.

• Budget

Part of the savings plan has GOT to be getting back on budget. I have a budget, but I'm a little loosey goosey when I stick to it (if I stick to it). Clearly whatever is going on with that budget is not working for me. So I'm going to sit down tomorrow and but it all in line. What I owe to whom (who?) when and what I earn from who when and how to make it work out. I am a single person with no debt and an excellent full time job and many part time gigs on the side. There is NO reason it should be this hard. The only person that is screwing up this equation is me. So I'm going to try to pull myself up by my boot straps and just get it worked out. So if I'm grumpy...blame the budget. Money and I are climbing in a cage and I'm not getting out until I've beaten it into submission.

• Weight/Working Out
  

Please don't look at me while I discuss this. My weight is ridiculous. It's out of control, I'm out of control. I hired a trainer that I work out with once a week. But I have to face that I'm not really working that hard at it. I'm doing just enough until it gets hard and inconvenient and then I just half-ass it to get by. It's the pattern of my personal life. Because I don't believe I'm worth the effort.
I can't afford to work out with FT anymore than once a week because he's really freakin expensive. But I am going to be better about going to the gym 3 times a week no matter what. I will be saying no or not now to a lot of things that I love doing so I can go get better so I can keep doing them for a long time. Monday Mornings, Tuesday Evenings, Wednesday Evenings for sure. Depending on my part time gigs Friday night or Saturday during the day as well. You can ask me about these. Make me tell you. I might need you to not make eye contact with me while we talk about it, the shame is really palpable. But please ask me if I went to the gym and if I say no call me on my shit. If I start to cry, that would be the sign that you need to be a little nicer about it though...I'm really ashamed in this area and might throw up with the realization that more than 1 or 2 of you read this.

• Weight/Nutrition

This is the hardest. I really love food that is terrible. I will not eat fish. Stop telling me I should. I'm starting small and working my way up from there.

1. No food from a building with a drive thru attached
2. Only eat out (at a non-drive thru building) once a week.
3. No soda. At all.
4. Candy, cookies, sweets of that sort 3 times a week total. Quantity those 3 times not to exceed 150 calories.

That's the best I can do right now I think. Nutrition is really hard for me. I can't figure out why I can't get it and I feel pretty stupid as a result. If you see me drinking a soda please physically remove it from my hand. If you see drive thru wrappers around me ask me about them. Again, eye contact may have to be severed for awhile, but please push me on it. I'm very sneaky.

I'm hoping to have lost 40 pounds by the end of 2010. That should be easy, no problem. But I'm terrified of being a failure so that's the goal I'm setting.

There you go. My ridiculously terrifying list of goals for 2010. Promise you'll help? I'll need all I can get.