The last day of the year. How is this possible? I remember thinking way back when I was in my twenties how remarkably far away the Millennium was and how horrifically old I would be when it happened. Good Lord I would be in my 40s! Now heading into the 14th year past the whoop-de-do fin de siècle I think we may now finally, crossing my fingers here, be past the last of the millennialist doomsday cultish pop cultural preoccupation with death and destruction.
This year was just plain old hard for me. I should have expanded my horizons, but I am more cut off than socially than I was last year at this time and feeling a bit depressed about not having that damn book done.
I walked through so many unpleasant scenes from my life, revisiting them time and again, so as to figure out how to address them in telling my story without leaving out crucial but personally disgusting memories, and in how to handle saying things generally enough to not be sued, but specifically enough to convey the inappropriateness of at least one aspect of nearly every relationship in my life.
I'm where I can write about everything, and I only hope the Goddess sticks with me long enough to finish what I think will be a truly useful narrative for medical abuse and factitious disorder survivors, and people who love them or seek to help them heal, about growing up in the nexus of The Family Munchausen. I want so terribly at times to simply walk away and just blog about boomers, cohorts and generations. I know as much as I need to know to continue healing as I move through life and new experiences. I don't have to do this writing that I have spent most of this year on, one way or another, for me. I am doing it because I feel I have the ability to share an insiders perspective on a little known topic and that doing so may help a significant number of people.
I will be glad to be able to be happy again. I have only ,in the last few weeks, figured out that I had to get in touch not only with my experiences and anger toward certain creepy people who took advantage of the already damaged young person I was, but a generalized anger toward the world that allowed this to happen horrible things to happen to me and did not give me tools or perspective to heal and move on successfully.
So figuring it all out was this year's work, addressing the unaddressed aspects of my life while facing some significant milestones like moving my daughter across country, facing more changes that totally blind-sided me, in more than a couple close relationships. I think it is good to do wrap ups at years ending. Conscious, reasoned responses can be fashioned and I am living proof of that.
In spite of a generalized funk that seemed to grow throughout the year, I did not suffer an apocalypse. Newtown, CT did, Aurora, CO did, untold families and individuals did. And that is why we have to hold hope and kindness in our hearts… we have to preserve it so that the individuals who have faced world-ending horror have something to which they can reconnect which allows them to believe in goodness and find reason to go on.
Therefore I am listing some of the very good things about 2012.
- GBE2 group on Facebook, a group of writers through which I've found many wonderful writers.
- GenFab on which started out on Facebook is moving to a web presence as another group of writers who are all women of a certain age.
- BlogHer Conference attendees who are also, you may be sensing a theme here, women of a certain age who I met or re-met in NYC in August such as Mimi, Marci, Sharon, Judy, Suzi, Jan… and scads more.
- Corporate entities, incorporated or not, such as BoomBox Network, SecondLives.com, GrownandFlown who helped convince me that there is a market for my senior moments.
- The friends I reconnected with this year. Yes, Deb, this means you. We are awesome and I am so glad we can remind each other of this again!
- The very best thing is knowing that even though my daughter lives far too far away, she calls me on her lunch hours, and we can yakkity yak for an hour with no problems. We are still close, and maybe even closer than we have been since when she was little. Maybe the terrible twos are over… I hear they can last for up to 22 years. So we are ahead of the game.
- Senator Nina “Get Outta My Panties,” Turner, from Cleveland, who has served in the Ohio Senate since 2008 was one of the very good things about this past year too! I love it when women speak truth to power.
As another woman blogger of a certain age posted a piece on her blog today that I wish I had written, Good Riddance 2012: an Open Letter to one of the Worst Years Ever. It is a good summation of a most disappointing year.
It is New Years Eve so I am going to have a drink or three. Happy New Year!
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