Hey 2013! You kinda sucked…..

Dear 2013:

I’m glad you’re nearly done.

I wrote a glowing review of 2012, 364 days ago. I was sitting in my kitchen in Colorado, reflecting on a year that brought a sea-change to my life.  That sea-change was internal; I put my life and my beliefs into a salad spinner and formed a new way of seeing things.  I called 2012 “my year of living honestly”.

You were supposed to be my year of “walkin’ the walk”.  The year that I took what I learned about myself in the previous year and instituted the new life.  It went from being internal and spiritual to physical, geographical and real.

You’ve been a bitch, 2013.  And I take partial responsibility.  The strategies that got me to the tipping point of changing my life went out the window once the changes really started physically and emotionally happening.  Meditation fell by the wayside, exercise was put on the back burner, I allowed my control freak tendencies to creep back in and settle into a spare bedroom in my brain.

One step forward, two steps back…or is that two steps forward, one step back.  Maybe I’ll have a clearer picture of that concept as 2014 unfolds.

I’m an optimist.  Really.  I think that things will work out just fine in the end.  I’m also a pragmatist and a planner.  Once I commit to something, I’m pretty much all-in and often that means that I can power through problems and snags and barricades like a tank.  But, that takes a toll.

The last 6 months contained a fair number of hurdles.  Selling a house, moving 1500 miles, realizing that a 10 acre farm requires a lot of maintenance, constant nickel and dime problems with the new house, working remotely and feeling cut off from friends and co-workers, the sudden illness and death of one of our dogs, being the new folks in a small, rural community and finally, living close enough to my parents to witness their age-related decline.

These were not in my plan and it felt like being caught in an avalanche or a monster wave.  I told my husband after the death of our dog, which felt like the final straw, that I had lost my mojo.

That little internal spark that I’d always had that kept me going through challenges; the core belief that everything works out.  That my internal, anti-skid control will right my course very soon.  All of that was gone and I ended up in a deep ditch, spinning my wheels.

It seems that you were my year of cold, hard reality.  Of loss and grief.  But, that’s my glass-half-empty view and I’m a glass-half-full kind of gal.  Right now, I’d look at the glass and say “there’s enough liquid in there to wash down an Advil”.  I’ll take what I can get.

So, 2013, you gave me a beat down, but we all know that growth comes after destruction.  I’m feeling a few little stirrings of my mojo returning.  It’s walking up the driveway, through the snow and will eventually ring the bell and want to come in.

I can speed that mojo up by getting back into my meditation practice, cleaning up my diet, and firing up a more regular exercise routine.  I can embrace the changes that I put in motion, including those that were not included in my master plan.

So, goodbye 2013; I’m grateful for your lessons and your time, but you’ll stick in my craw for a long time.

Now get out.

Jane