We are healed from suffering only by experiencing it to the full. Marcel Proust

I guess my word for 2013 would be …tribulation? adversity?

The prompt for this first day of Reverb13 is …Where did you start 2013?

Wow. It’s pretty horrible, but then 2013 has been a pretty horrible year.

I can say some things are better. Em’s  school is SO much better. She doesn’t dread every day. She isn’t scared, she isn’t sad. She loves learning again. She’s engaged and happy. We got some flack for our choice—saying that we are being too easy on her, that she needs to “toughen up.” I learned a lot that day—about us as a family, about the speaker(s) of those words. It took a while to understand them but we all do now.  Seeing her happy and thriving has made a huge difference in everything.

I’ve left the daily situation that was so degrading and demeaning. That has lifted a burden that had contorted me  into something I am not. That situation had to get a lot worse before I left, unfortunately. I learned a lot from that too—it isn’t just what you do everyday, but who you do it around. The people make all the difference. I’m going to have to get counseling to deal with the disgusting and degrading things I had to put up with but I’m going to come out of that.

The Health situation —coming to acceptance there and now need to deal with something more upsetting than that was with someone very close to me.  But we are going to fix that. The next few weeks are going to be nerve wracking—but we are going to make sure  that everything becomes ok.

It’s really been a crappy year. I/we have dealt with a lot of crises. From terrifying to annoying. From eye opening to earth shattering. I’ve been pretty quiet on here because I’ve had to. it’s been a year of constant upheaval.

And we are making it through.

And there will be changes in the coming year. I’m letting go of some people and things that no longer make any sense.

Because from cruel words and time and again saying …’that is just their way.” I’m letting  them have their way and leaving their stage. I’m not without blame in this. But my screwup allowed me to see all the rage that was just under the surface and like my father said—I have to learn things the hard way. I started thinking back and talking and asking and …. Unless suddenly someone slips truth serum in our iced tea out here, we aren’t coming back from this one. And the interesting thing this time is, I’m at peace with this. We tried to fix it, perhaps we all tried…and it didn’t work. Too many tears, tears and breaks. Just too many. And I guess now I can begin to quit keeping all of that in the shadows and so can they. Or maybe we all just walk away and let it go? I don’t know the answer yet.

And I’m going to try and face down one of my biggest fears and my achilles heel. Because the pressures and mistakes of the past year have made it clear that I have to. It’s been an issue on and off throughout my life and because of the unending crap of the last year it’s been well..more of an issue. I’m not sure how I’m going to do this this time but  I’m looking it in the face and telling that fearful part of my lizard brain to shut up and go away now.  This thing must be fixed.

So..to sum up…This year our lives took a huge beating. The shame would be in not fixing   and not learning from the …whatever all those things were. Here’s to looking back and going forward.