New Year. New Everything.

Jan 1, 2013. Fabulous hats. Bright new year.

2013 is just about to slip away, and I barely noticed the past two months.

That's not a bad thing, I don't think there has been much to notice. I've hibernated, I've put off doing things that I know I should have begun, I've spent vast amounts of that time watching TV, or sitting in front of the computer with a half dozen tabs open, checking pages every few minutes to see if there have  been changes. Has anything happened here? Refresh. No? On to the next tab then. Why isn't anyone online? Do these people have lives or something? Geez!

I have done exactly what I was talking about in one of the previous posts. I've time traveled my way through November and December. It's okay. I needed to. I might still do that for a while. There are still things to binge-watch on Netflix.

Sometime sent me a note last week to say they hope I'm getting through this, and I realized that for the first time I'm beginning to believe I will. It wasn't that I never believed I could until last week, it was that I didn't care, I really didn't. Oh, I've tried to talk a good game about all of the plans I have, about following Jeff's advice, being in the moment, not allowing my mind chatter to get the better of me... but really? For the entirety of November and for a large chunk of December, probably right up through Thursday or Friday, I really didn't care. For the first few weeks every time I woke up I was disappointed that I had woken up because there was nothing, not one single thing, that I could find to look forward to.

Now, well, maybe the world isn't quite as dark as it was.  This is not to say that I have suddenly emerged on the other side of the tunnel and am filled with fresh new hope for the future, I'm still far from that. I'm still having the awful mood swings, the sobbing fits, the experience of walking into a room and feeling astonished that he's not there. But the other day there were a few little passing moments where I realized that I do care about the future, just a little. There are things I look forward to. Things I want to see, do, and experience. Places I want to go. People I want to meet. Friends to visit. It may not seem like realizing this was a big step, but for me this felt like a huge revelation.

So here I am, getting ready to begin a new year on my own. I don't usually make a list of resolutions, but there are things I'll try to do this year. I know I'll slip backwards more often than not, I'll fall in and out of bad habits. I'll battle with my anxiety about the future every day. I'll cry, complain, whine, and feel miserable because I miss Jeff so much it makes my stomach hurt. But I will also find joy and fun in little things. I'll try to reach out more to people, something I've always been extremely afraid of doing because I'm convinced I'm being a bother. I'll chatter constantly about whatever pops into my head and share whatever pastime I become obsessed with until I drive all of my online friends completely insane and they begin to wish my internet would fail. I'll set goals that are so far beyond my reach that they're just silly but I'll cherish them anyway, and I'll realize that others are more attainable than I'd imagined. I hope I'll surprise myself.

I have no idea what's going to happen in 2014 and I'm terrified, but maybe, just maybe, there will be a little more light in my life.

(cross posted from Kything NaturesZen)