New Year

I've been a quiet blogger lately, largely because I needed all my resources to make it through the holidays.

I made it but more importantly, I did not go back to my abuser. Not that I seriously entertained the thought, but in the background of everything I do is the compulsion to be nice to him. It makes no sense to want to be kind to someone who treated me as a non-human for three years, but I was taught above all things to treat others as I wish to be treated.

The further away from him I get though, and the more time I have by myself, the less I feel I should go back.

Yes I was sad, and a little lonely too. But I confronted those feelings. I looked them in the eye and said, " I know who you are, and I'm not afraid of feeling you!" (Corny? Yes! Effective? Absolutely!)

I self-medicated with new boots, a french manicure, knitting and figuring out ways to show the people in my life how much I really do appreciate everything they've done for me.

Through all of this I'm learning how to take better care of myself, especially in the emotional sense. When I feel something, like anger or sadness,  I try to be present in that feeling, instead of trying to bury it or cover it over with denial. I had a physical in November, and it turns out I'm physically healthy. Right before I went I had this nagging feeling that I would turn out to have some horrible disease, but thankfully it was just an anxiety. Now I just have to tackle quitting smoking. (Ha. Maybe that will be my resolution for 2012.)

I'm learning how to be more giving too. I was so used to my abuser take, take, taking from me emtionally and financially that all of my resources for charity and kindness seemed used up. But they aren't, and I'm not the inherently selfish person that he tried to make me out to be. (Though I frequently have to remind myself of that fact, it is becoming easier to accept.)

So I'm in this weird holding pattern right now. I can't make any real, life-changing decisions until I have my divorce decree in hand. Or rather I won't. I have to see this year of North Carolina required separation through. I have to lay the ground work for the future, instead of leaping toward it, eyes closed just to escape the present.

I only have one resolution for this new year, and it is just to...BE.

Be alive, be engaged, be happy. Whatever life requires of me, I will just be.