8,760 Hours Later....

this is where I stand:

• I made peace with the fact that I'm an artist. I told Poppy yesterday that I'm actually quite comfortable with it now, because it's what I've been all along. What gives me pause me is that I know other people think I'm crazy/insane/intense/scary/going-through-a-phase/untouchable/unreliable/bewildering. This bothers me because believe it or not, as anti-social and low-tolerance-for-bullshit as I am, I need people. Certain people. And those people that I need I'm quite dependent on as long as I allow myself to be. If those people that I love and depend on think I'm those things and start backing away ("Stay awaaaay from the crazy lady!") it hurts. Of course, if they do that means they never really "got" me to begin with but still. It's hard to find that shit out. It means I have to spend some time resetting myself and adjusting to their absence. And I still need my "Ride or Die" and I worry that me being an artist is going to weed out an awful lot of folk. It takes a strong soul to make a commitment to an artist. Trust me... just ask the parents.
  
  But other than that I'm OK with being an artist. It's what I know. My earliest memories are of the smell of my mother's linseed oil, of paint tubes and brushes, and the sound of my father's typewriter. Of paintings everywhere and Marion Brown's saxophone and people talking about jazz and politics and art.
  
  
• I haven't however, figured out how to afford my cherry-red, patent leather stiletto heels. Or anything else more useful and necessary like the rent. And I still have my mother and grandmother's champagne tastes, so this is sort of a quandary.
  
  
• I lost my sanity at least twice during these 8,760 hours. Maybe more. But I recovered it so it's all good. Especially since my soul is pretty much intact. The heart hurts... but the soul is solid.
  
  
• I loved someone wholeheartedly. Unabashedly and without apology. The problem was I still haven't figured out how to do that with someone who can return the favor.
  
  
• 8,760 hours ago I was still at War with SD, and it seemed it would never end. Looking back, I guess it was the last "surge" before the enemy admits defeat and waves the White Flag, but at the time I felt I was going to be overcome. It's been weird, this sudden peace. But it's a relief. I couldn't have fought much longer. I was tired.
  
  
• Have to add (after post was published) that some of my friendships intensified during the past 8,760 hours... and some dropped off. This is good. Y'all think I'm antisocial and bitchy (you people who know me in real life) but you should know I'm not. I just don't like being hurt so I keep myself close. But to those of you I love, I love 200% (cuz you do know I'm all-or-nothing), and I love when new people come into my life, or people I've known but didn't really know before get to know me/I get to know them... and so I appreciate my ever-closeness with my family, and my ride-or-die freindships with certain ladies (and you know who you are) and my new freindship with CNC. It made a lot of other shit that happened during the past 8,760 hours a lot more bearable.
  

Last night, New Years Eve, the abstract of it sucked. It was bad enough I haven't had my Sun here... normally during the break we do our Times Square date and hang out with friends and family and I have missed him so much. It's not so much that I'm attached to my child, which I am, but that my kid has an old soul and is great company. In fact, I often forget he's only 9, because in Soul Years he's as old as I am. His soul takes up an awful lot of room in this big apartment, and the absence of it is marked. My apartment is empty without him. He, however, hasn't missed me at all which doesn't make me feel sad. In fact, quite the opposite. I know there will be a time when he spends the majority of his time with his own friends, or hopefully a family of his own and it makes my mother's heart happy because I know he's going to have a good life, independent of me. And I'm happy that he has his Da. But he is good company and I do hate having to share him.

But I knew he was going and if I'd had my druthers I would have spent the holiday curled up on my RedCouch with someone cuddly and a bottle of champagne, but fuck it. Obviously this is not what God intends for me right now. Maybe never, and so I didn't want to be out in the street because I would have felt it more. As it was, being in my own apartment alone insulated me from feeling alone. I cooked. I Crackbooked. For the most part I avoided all the New Year's Eve shows and scenes from Times Square, until the last 15 seconds. Afterwards I turned it off, particularly since there was a song that brought back memories I'm going to do my best to put away forever. Well, at least until they don't hurt. So the reality of New Years Eve didn't suck too much.

The Professor IM'd me to say she hoped I wasn't crying, and I wasn't. I think I'm all cried out for now. I mean, what else is there to do but continue on? Make a way out of no way... push through till the finish. Never Give Up, Never Give In, Never Surrender. Do or Die. "Do, or Do Not. There is no Try." "It's a new Dawn, It's a New Day, It's a New Life for me... and I'm feeling good..."

Some people say that New Years resolutions are sort of a waste, that any time of year is a good time to start something new, and this is true, on the one hand. On the other hand, I suspect that those people who say things like that are mostly guilty of losing momentum and failing at their resolution, and therefore don't want to set themselves up for further failure. I've missed a lot of goals I've set for myself, but on the other hand I've met some of them. And I think that New Years is as good a time as any as starting new things, because it's a date you know you'll remember, and can go back and compare where you are now to where you were then. So I'm still a fan of New Years resolutions. But I think they should be more like goals... like the goals they set for my kid in his school at the beginning of the year.

So to that end, I found this list I'm going to borrow from my blogsister Green Tea Ginger:

The categories:
Things you learned this year
People you met
Things you don't want to take with you into 2008
Things you want to hold close as you pass into 2008
Things you're looking forward to in 2008
Things that were life changing in 2008
Things you hope to accomplish by the end of 2009

Now you can either give two answers for each category OR you can choose two from that list and give seven answers.

Things you learned this year:

1. How to sew batten pockets for sails
2. If it looks like a snake, then it is a snake.
   

People you met (that I liked... I meet people all the time. And do people I met on Crackbook count??? So I'll pick one from each category):

1. Zach
2. Christina
   

Things you don't want to take with you into 2009:

1. My messy apartment.
   
2. Alone-ness
   

Things you want to hold close as you pass into 2009:

1. My unrelenting and unreasonable EverHopeFulness
2. My Inner Child
   

Things you're looking forward to in 2009:

1. Shopping
   
2. Summer
   

Things that were life changing in 2008:

1. Las Vegas
   
2. The End of my War with SD
   

Things you hope to accomplish by the end of 2009:

1. Becoming Financially self-sufficient again
   
2. At least one artistic endeavor... La Vida Low Budget-the book, or a product line, something.
   

Happy New Year, everyone.
Abrazos