The good:
- Finlay was happy with us for his last 3 months, and without us those last 3 months might have been in the shelter (they do a great job there but it’s never going to be as good as a real family). We did good there.
- I only spent a little while beating myself up about whether it was all my fault etc etc (long chat with vet was hard but helped).
- I did a lot of writing earlier this week.
- I talked to a friend at New Year about doing a lot of writing and about my plans to put time into my writing (this was a really scary thing to admit, but R was really supportive about it).
.-= Juliet´s last post … Repair, reuse… =-.

OK, ignore the fact I only noticed this post on Sunday, it still counts dammit!

What did this week have, hm.

Hard: totally and completely out of the groove on all my good habits. Yoga, Shiva nata, getting up in the morning, morning tea, e-mail maintenance… they are all strangers to me now. Do I have to start all over?

New year’s eve. Again, not talking about it. But hard anyway (even though I went to bed(!))

The sleeps! Actually, this might be a good thing in disguise or something, but since I got back my body’s like: “hey, let’s sleep some more!” Regardless of how much sleep I’ve had. “More sleeps please.” What is that?

Good: Lazy lazy days at my mum’s place. Aaah.

There’s a new year. That’s cool. I am OK with carefully making some plans and trying some new things and what not. Sure.

I’m doing some drawings for my new book, and I like em. Yup.

Sorry for the very late chicken! Be here earlier next week. XD

And Havi, I just feel happy about the sweet karma of you being comforted on the Twitters. Because you do so much to recruit the bright and thoughtful and interesting people, and then we all get to share in that community. So yeah, for you to be cheered there just makes lovely sense.
.-= Briana´s last post … Idea! Connection reflection. And bunnies. =-.

This week’s hard:
- More house troubles caused by the formers owner’s incompetence. Minor, and totally work-around-able, but still irritating.
- Working diligently to close out my 2009 paperwork so as to avoid a repeat of the Great Income Tax Eve Disaster of 2009 (and 2008, and 2007, and so on), and realizing that the few missing papers I need to finish are somewhere in Massive Filing Mountain. I have no energy to climb Massive Filing Mountain this week.
- The $250 I was planning on spending on two new tires turned into $625 on new tires, new brakes, and a few miscellaneous other things. Ugh.

This week’s good:
- My sweet, sweet husband made dinner for me on my birthday, and he gave me the most wonderful Christmas and birthday gifts: a fancy new camera and a Kindle. I’m immersed in new technology this week.
- It’s birthday week! I love birthday week…
- The Buckeyes won the Rose Bowl!
- The turkeys are back! http://www.flickr.com/photos/virtuallori/4235183205/
.-= Lori Paximadis´s last post … Best of 2009: Place =-.

Big hugs for all that hard stuff everyone, i feel for you.

Hurrah for the good, the resolution, the moments of peace, kindness, love and silliness that have come to be alongside all the bleurgh.

Friday chicken on a saturday:

the hard this week.

I’ve had a cold all week. Poor wife had it amidst all the xmas stuff last week and i got it for the her-and-me quiet, post-xmas stuff. i have concrete snot still but it is going away.

We’re both already getting that horrible ooooh going back to work feeling and i really, really want to trump that this year and make it stop. Autonomy, self-efficacy, where are you?

The good.

we had a lot of hanging out with each other time this week even though i was feeling pretty crappy for most of it. we watched a lot of cricket.

Star Trek Generations on blu-ray! oh my!

new year’s day with friends Kristan and Pete and their daughter – our Goddaughter – Libby. Fantastic day, great food and Libby was brilliant, she is a genius and a comic.

peaceful new year to you all xx

The week of Guilt and Big Time Neediness

The Hard
I learned that a friend with whom I had finally informed I could no longer give weekly support to, had been sectioned weeks ago and had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. When I finally located her she spoke about me putting her in there and deciding her future. And even though I recognised this was part of her ‘condition’ – I also recognised that she felt abandoned by me, by her parents/the world and that this was how she was expressing her hurt, whether or not she recorded things factually. It was distressing to hear the extent to which she was in pain. Naturally I also felt My Stuff. Lots of guilt. Guilt that I even considered My Stuff. After a childhood around unhappiness or ‘mental illness’ I thought that maybe it was ok that I wanted to be selfish, that I may not yet be strong enough to be around my friend until she is through the woods. I am alert to the fact that I am, in some ways, abandoning her again in her hour of need. I am trying to make peace with the guilt and sense of responsibilty and rage that I feel. A quite rage that her family do not support her and never have. Guilt and wobbling followed.

Another friend now out of hospital with brain op. I wobbled to see how terrified she had been when she was in there suffering and I was shocked and disturbed by how little she asked of her partner in her time of great need. I wanted to run away because it looked like she just had me and I am not an especially close friend. I ran away a little. I guilted, wobbled and eventually made contact with her again. She is feeling much better now. So a relief. But I still, even weeks later feel a bit out of sorts and sad. Memories of my Dad, of being someone who gave huge support as a young woman, of being an adutl and doing the same with my ex and of not wanting to be around people who don’t know how to create sturdy enough support in their life, even though this too is a lesson that I am learning.

I reached out to friends – just to hear them say yes you have a right to wobble and not rationalise away my feelings and experience of my friend. I heard nothing back from them. Sweet nothing. And my love was not present because he had his own big hurts to deal with and I did not feel I could impose. So since this was the week of hard I managed to go from feeling wobbly to feeling alone, despairing, abandoned, sad and disappointed that friend’s were so silent in their support! It took 4 days to pass before I used NVC to get specific and ask for what I needed via text to a friend! Still feel a bit sad and vulnerable.

Hard to see that I am so demanding and needy of support some times.

Feeling stuck and uninspired about my current writng on FB, lack of income and failure to venture any further with my creative biz. Demanding Me emerges and gets pissy.

The Good
My love, my partner. After a difficult weepy new years eve we recovered on new years day. Lots of tenderness and acts of kindness. He was wonderful and today after a sleepless night and much grumpiness on my part he made me breakfast and freshly brewed coffee. I’ve lived alone, been alone for 5-6 years, therefore I am soooo grateful and blissed out that I have this new love in my life and that he wants to look after/support me like this.

Gratitude too that he can somehow ‘manage’ the extent to which I ask for tlc. Ohh so much gratitude that he does not shame me for my requests.

This space as always.

A roof over my head, lovely food to eat, lovely Christmas gifts.

Seeing my Love’s parental home and the chaos of it. Made me smile and scatch my chin. Seeing how happy he was that I was there with him.

The Good:
–Seeing other old childhood friends while in hometown and having a good visit with them
–Coming home to my beautiful city by the bay
–Holidays are OVER
–Exciting prospects on the horizon for 2010 both on the artistic and on the personal growth levels

Hugs to all for the hard; high fives for the good

Here’s to a glorrrrrious 2010 for one and all

Glad the bunnies (among the other wonderful twitter-cheer-ups) helped!

Hope this coming week untangles all the administrative snafus & everything comes face-up on the other side.
.-= Alexia´s last post … Starred Items: Lemming-ish Year End Roundup =-.

This week was not a particularly happy week. Our Christmas Day plans went awry when we agreed to see Sherlock Holmes because our dear friend wanted to. (I’m a delicate flower and I love the books. ‘Nuff said.) Then we had one awesome day, and then, on my birthday, the lovely wife twisted her knee, which led to us not leaving the house, the dear friend being grouchy about picking up my cake (I drew the line at picking up my own cake), and my having to do housework because the get-together got moved to our house. Work went pear-shaped several times. I’ve been so slow as to be catatonic on projects I want to do. But the worst of it, the absolute worst, is that I am clearly having Deep Unrest from Old Gunk That Is Finally Coming to Light. Remembering nightmares in which someone is burning my face with acid and I am screaming bloody murder? NOT FUN.

But not everything was awful. I moved my altar to a new and fabulous location. I got myself new Moleskines (abundance!). I had a lovely dinner with work peeps. My lovely wife adores me even when I’m a big emotional cranky pants. I found my theme word of the year. And despite not really wanting to deal with the Old Gunk, knowing that my unrest is that and nothing else.

It was a cranky week, for sure. Thank goodness for a new one!
.-= Julie´s last post … And the MLA Commences =-.