Maria! It's wonderful to see you here.
Congratulations to Kate and her fiancee!
So, 2009. It was the year of crazy rollercoaster rides for me. 2009 had some astonishingly bad points. Really, really bad. Health scares for us, family, and friends, getting laid off, and both Pete and I went a bit insane in very not good ways, bad. But we're both working on not dwelling on the bad things and moving forward. In fact, things have been better than they have in a very long time, and I am very, very grateful for that. (And a huge, heartfelt Thank You to those of you who were there and helped us through things. My chosen family are the best people I know.)
HOWEVER, 2009 had some amazing, fantastic high points. Book! Travel! Seeing friends! Meeting new people! Multiple trips to Disneyland! Concerts! Better communication with my loved ones! Did I mention the book?! (And, er, getting a photo with my rock star crush object at SDCC!) Achieving a level of gothy fame that I didn't think was possible for me! Here, let me add more exclamation points, because I can!!!
My fervent, fervent hope is that 2010 takes its pattern from the good parts of 2009, and that the coming year is kinder to ALL of us.
So, I was reflecting on the past 10 years.
I'm kind of amazed at how my life has changed in the past 10 years. I spent New Year's Eve 1999 with the Freak-Ass Church, at a big drunken party whose highlight was when, at midnight, the power cut out. And we all freaked out: the Y2K warnings were real!!! Then the power came back on and we realized that L. wasn't in the room; he had gone outside to flip the breakers and fuck with us.
On New Year's Day 2000, L. and I went to dinner with friends of his who we were trying to evangelize. (No, really. And I am SO not proud of pushing God on people, of making friends with people with the ulterior motive of trying to bring them into the Freak-Ass Church. That's not how it should be.)
L. was the guy who I on-again-off-again dated, and I was crazy about him. Though never totally comfortable with him, but I assumed I was just the kind of person who would never be totally comfortable with someone. Our breakups were ugly, but we always ended up friends again, because we were so enmeshed.
I was in the Freak-Ass Church until Mother's Day 2002 (there was no specific thing about Mother's Day that pushed me out; I just remember it being the last Sunday service I attended). They had just sucked the life out of me, and I couldn't take it any more. No church -- no group of any kind -- should leave a person feeling miserable and drained and less-than. So, although it was one of the hardest things I ever did, I left. And everyone who I had believed were my friends just...stopped talking to me. I believe the phrase they used was "If you choose to leave, you choose to give up the benefits of our friendship." (What would Jesus do? Apparently act like a Junior-High cliquey bitch, is what.)
And then I spent a fair amount of time (years, I mean) alone, very much on purpose. Most of the rest of 2002, 2003, and 2004 I kept to myself. I was really burned out on goddamn people, I was deeply hurt that my friends from the Freak-Ass Church, who I had spent so much time with, just cut me out of their lives. So I didn't want much to do with *anybody* for quite a while.
It was also some time in 1999 or 2000 that I found the Buffistas, still on Table Talk at the time. July 2001 was the first time I met any Buffistas in person, on a trip to California. TEN YEARS I've been a part of this online community, you guys. TEN YEARS. That's amazing. And for my self-imposed period of Fuck All Y'all Bastards (2002-2004, inclusive), I got a lot of friendship and support from the Buffistas. Without you guys, I would have been totally isolated.
I had back surgery in 2003, and took up fencing in 2004, 9 months after surgery.
And in February 2005, a little less than 3 years after leaving the Freak-Ass Church, I got up my courage and went to a meeting of the local BDSM group. By myself. The rest, as they say, is history. I met some good friends -- I'm still meeting good friends -- and I met Tim, had a crush on him, and realized that it would Never Happen because he was in a not-relationship with A. And then I became real, good friends with him when it all went horribly wrong with A.
And then...I kissed him. That was February 2006.
December 2007 I moved in with him, and we're living funnily ever after.
2008 and 2009 have had their ups and downs -- a parade of illnesses and maladies that kept befalling me, great vacations, job woes, silly domestic bliss -- but they passed by under the all-encompassing banner of Oh My God, I Had No Idea I Could Love Someone This Much And Be So Totally Comfortable With Them. (And the smaller banner of Seriously, TWO Closets? This House Has Only TWO Closets?)
I think about the way I felt about L., back in 1999, how crazy I was about him, yet how I still felt uncomfortable with him to a degree (as I have with every man I've been with -- except for Tim), and how I feel about Tim is so different. He's the only person in my life -- family included -- who makes my soul feel calm and at peace. I didn't realize how jangly and restless my psyche was until I met him and (continued...)
( continues...) everything got calm.
So. 1999-2009. If you told me on New Year's Day 2000 that, on New Year's Day 2010, I'd be sitting on the couch in the house I share with my boyfriend to whom I'm not married yet have amazing kinky sex with and make Mobius strips with in our spare time, I would never -- and I mean NEVER -- have believed you.
Man, it's good.
didn't mean to say it twice, I just love a happy ending
I make a huglike, nontouching gesture in your general direction, Steph. To finding happy places and selves!
my boyfriend to whom I'm not married yet have amazing kinky sex with and make Mobius strips with in our spare time
And who doodles romantic messages to you on the eggs in the fridge and on your car's snowy windshield. Don't forget that part.
I'm loving reading everyone's stories, so very deeply.
(No urge to write my own as yet; I can't even begin to think how to sum up the last decade.)
I make a huglike, nontouching gesture in your general direction, Steph.
Ahahaha!!! Thank you!!!
And who doodles romantic messages to you on the eggs in the fridge and on your car's snowy windshield. Don't forget that part.
I have pictures to commemorate those very events! (Though the eggs were far from romantic: [link]
Someday, when we meet, Steph and I will wave our arms at each other in odd gestures.
I've got NO CLUE what I would say.
Cause I used to be one of those crazy driven planner chicks that would want to kill herself for not publishing a novel by this age.
