Sometimes the Past is a Present: 2007 Revisited

Here it is, New Year's Eve.  

What a great year 2007 has been for me.

I'm grateful for the changes...the little steps I've made to get out of a rut that I'd fallen into. 

When I first separated in 1999 I made commitment to myself to treat myself well, to learn and grow and to get out of my comfort zone.  I did many fun things that I'd have never done while I was married.  (I took writing and art classes, learned to rollerblade, moved to the beach.)    But I didn't feel like myself.  It was a strange feeling--like I wasn't all there.  What do you do when you feel like you're in a chrysalis?  (This is a future blog topic if there ever was one!)  I was able to do lots of stuff--but I felt strange, like my clothes didn't fit and I couldn't yet decide what would I wanted to wear.

Lately I've had a similar urge to change my life--but I'm already a butterfly (I suppose) because I feel very much "myself."  Maybe I just flew around more this year--checked out more gardens, drank from more flowers.  

I'm grateful for the days of 2007 in which I met many new wonderful people.  I went on my first yoga retreat in Ojai.  (www.carpediemretreats.com).  I took a yoga teacher training coarse.  (And found out just today that I passed!)  Yahoo!  (www.yogaworks.com)    I was encouraged by a volunteer at KCRW's biannual fundraiser (kcrw.org) to take a writing class with a wonderful teacher, Jack Grapes (www.jackgrapes.com/grapes_approach.php).  (Thanks Charles and Lara!) and I did some volunteer work for Planned Parenthood (www.plannedparenthood.org/los-angeles) .  

I've also met a man whose company I greatly enjoy.  My children are healthy and relatively happy (they are adolescents after all--some angst is in order, though I've not seen it yet.)  I'm fortunate that an dear friend encouraged me to write about what it's like being divorced--thank you Jackie.  And thanks to the Mad As Hell Club for pointing me in the direction of some bloggers and letting me find this venue where I can express myself.

I'm grateful for rediscovering, in these last days of 2007 that the net has turned into such a great place to learn--it's like sitting in a pile of books strewn from the shelves of all the libraries, lined with walls filled with video feeds, while professors and teachers stand nearby willing to help me explore it all.  I used bulletin boards in the 80s with a dial-up modem (the graphics were created from the keyboard--typing x's and other letters)   Back then I wrote an environmental newsletter that I printed on a dot matrix printer.  Now there is...this!

For 2008 I look forward to exploring this medium.  It was where I left off in 1999 and I'm so glad to be able to return.

Happy New Year!