So, tomorrow is my birthday.

I'd totally like to claim that I won't be online tomorrow, but we all know what a damn lie that would be. I do have plans, though, that involve going off all by myself, but I'm still waiting on one final part of the plan to fall into place before I know if I will be actually celebrating my birthday or just sitting at home worrying about stuff. I'm actually pretty confident.

Let me say that again: I'm actually pretty confident.

Not about my plans tomorrow, but about life in general. And since I'm about to hit a new decade mark, I get to navel-gaze all the hell I want. (Which y'all know I like to do anyhow.) I'm gonna get it out of the way today, though. I went back and read through my archives yesterday and on the one hand it's kinda depressing but on the other it's actually pretty cool. I got to see again all the support I got when I needed it, and that is a humbling thing.

I probably never said this in so many words, so I'll do that now:

Thanks, guys.

Thanks to Mark and Murphy and MattG and Dave and knitalot3 (I know you've changed your username, but I can't remember what to right now!) especially. Looking back I see how often y'all commented in those darkest days, and I remember MattG rallying the troops when I had my miscarriage. I appreciate that more than I can really put into words.

I am enjoying myself more these days. I'm still working on it. On everything. But it's moving. I don't know if I climbed over the top of the mountain or just stood up and realized it's truly just a hill or what, but suddenly it all seems manageable now.

Considering how hard a time I had letting go (which, for the record, I do think was justified), I'm actually now amused by the fact that I am gone. When I first started going through this I remember talking with a friend from church and saying I was being forced to review my marriage through a totally different lens. He told me it didn't really matter in the end, that I was where I was. But he was wrong. The reevaluation had to happen. The plain truth is that it was rotten for a long time and by the time it ended, I had spent years feeding myself lies to try to blunt an ever-present pain. I am trying not to fall all the way over to the other side, because there were plenty of good times mixed in amongst the bad, but fuck it. It's over now and I am finally realizing I am better off. Far, far better off.

I am done with a year of college and entering into my second year. It will take all of this one and probably another semester besides before I get all the bedamned prerequisites out of the way and can apply to nursing school. I'd rather take it slow and stroke my GPA (currently 3.98) than rush and wind up on the waiting list. All the same I'd rather be in it now, but I know that's not the way it's going to work. I am looking at another math class this semester, plus chemistry, and also Creative Writing and First Aid. I have a 3-credit-hour First Aid course! I should probably not be as excited about that as I am.

What else, what else?

I am very very early into the second draft of a novel I think actually has some potential. I hope to not bother my Creative Writing professor too much by working on it before class. I must confess to abandoning the first draft before it was finished, but it just wasn't working. We will see now if I can finish it; I had planned to have it done by the end of the summer but of course that didn't happen.

I haven't picked up a crochet hook in a little while. Too damn hot. I don't remember the last time I updated my crochet blog. Ah well. This one has finally bypassed the number of posts I had in the other. Sometimes it's odd to remember that this was started because I didn't want to muck up my crochet blog talking about other stuff!

Facebook has turned out to be a real blessing to me. Something I never thought I'd find myself saying. But check this out:



That's me and my daughters and my friend Shantillia and her son day before yesterday. Know the last time I had seen her before then? 1993. She was one of my only friends in elementary and junior high. We found each other via Facebook.

Wanna see something even better?



That's my sister and kids a couple of weeks ago. I found her through Facebook! Let me tell you, it was hard to find her. Lots and lots of people in this city with her name. But I found her. And this hole inside of me healed up. It doesn't come through clearly in this picture, but my kids look like her. Especially Miss Linda, who is sitting in her lap and of course is named for her. She is the one who wasn't named until she was about a day old (Miss Linda), and I remember starting to cry and saying her name was Linda, it just was. I guess now it's because of how much the two Lindas look alike!

And then there is Fred, but there is not much to say about him right now. And very well may never be. And I'm okay with that, which in a way is its own blessing. I like him. I think he's pretty groovy and I hope he will at least be a friend I will always have. I am sometimes kind of thrown by the fact that he seems to like me, but I get the impression that he is sometimes kind of thrown by the fact that I like him, so I guess it works. Which I guess is enough of an explanation for now.

I'm gonna be pissed if I have to wean myself off Air Force jokes though.