Goodbye, 2015

I would be a damned liar if I said that I was going to miss this year. I won't. This year was mentally and physically draining. There were times when I was ready to throw in the towel all together. Now, that's not to say that nothing good came of it. By this time next month, the tea cup human currently kicking the shit out of me while she plays with my bladder will be kicking on the outside of my womb and that is pretty exciting. Everyone I love is alive and in one piece despite the shit we went through this year. And I am fairly certain that this year and all that happened was so difficult because it is a transition year. I've seen the same things with many people I know. They've had loss and pain and they've had to face terrible things since last year. It's like there is something in the air, a certain way that the planets are aligning, something along those lines. If there is one thing life has taught me, it's that you have to deal with the loose ends in your life before you can fully move forward and I do think that in many cases that is what this year was about. For those who lost people they loved this year, no good things from 2016 can repair or make up for what was lost in 2015. If you are reading this and you are among those people, I am truly sorry. If you are reading this and you faced the loss of your home, job, important relationship, or something else that was very important to you, again, I am sorry. But all of us need to believe that things will get better and I honestly feel that they will. Keep your head up and continue to hope that the coming year will at least leave you in a better place than you are in right now.
I accomplished a few things this year though none of those things were huge. I did technically graduate months ago but I still have no diploma because the University of Phoenix has...well...I think they just forgot about me and that important piece of paper I worked very hard to get. After I believe everyone is back at the office, I intend to write them and find out what the hell the hold up is. I did finish Rapunzel though it doesn't look like my dream of finishing Sleeping Beauty before the baby comes is going to come true. Between being incredibly sick and the craziness of the last two months where holidays and things like that are concerned, I got behind on my goal of writing every day. Now my goal is to finish as much of it as I can before the baby comes and to work on it when I can once she's here. And, of course, I'm nearly done growing a person (as a dear friend of mine puts it) but that isn't so much an accomplishment as a test of strength in my case. lol Those were the major things I did, the things that will carry over into 2016. 
  It wasn't all I hoped to accomplish but I did not anticipate pregnancy, either. I bitch about my defective body quite a bit. I mean, of all the betrayals I've suffered in my life, my body turning on me was probably the hardest to handle. And I've never had more cause to bitch about this body's many limitations than I've had these past eight months. BUT I also understand that the job I asked my body to undertake when I asked it to grow a human being, with it being the way it is, was probably the hardest job I've ever asked my body to do. For the past seven years it has been a constant struggle for my body to keep me alive and then I added a very needy, demanding, being to the mix and I told my body to support her too. Normally when my body cannot handle something I want it to do on a day to day basis, like cleaning the house, I push myself even if it means more pain, more weakness, whatever. But I have been afraid to push beyond what I should since I've been pregnant because I wanted the baby to get all she needed to be healthy. I have had to learn over these past few months how to take it easy....and it sucks. I hate it. I have had to learn patience with a body I usually have no patience for. I have had to learn (and this has been the hardest lesson of all...) to accept limitations on what I can do even if it means letting the house get dirty or not meeting the deadline I set for myself with my book. So I accomplished little this year overall but in a month I'll be able to hold the biggest accomplishment of them all in my arms and I know that in that moment, anything I didn't finish this year will be far from my mind. 
        I've raised kids before so I know better than to sit and make concrete plans for the first year after I have this child. However, I am hoping to have Rapunzel edited and out into the world by May. I am also still hoping to finish Sleeping Beauty at some point this year. It would be great if I could start saving up to self-publish through Archway Publishing before 2018 but babies are expensive creatures and we essentially live off of my boyfriend's overtime each payday as it is so that is currently more of a dream than a goal. For the first month of 2016, my main focus, my biggest goal, is to get the baby and me through labor and to have her come to us healthy...and for me to be as healthy as I can be in the months that follow. I have three serious autoimmune diseases that will all go into overdrive as soon as this child is born so I know it's going to be a long road. I accept that. But I intend to do the best I can and hopefully 2016 does the same for me. 
       Happy New Year, my beloved blogger friends. I hope that the next year brings you all joy, prosperity, new opportunities when and where you need them most, magick, and above all, I hope that you are showered with love. Love from within yourself, love from your family, love from your friends, love in random acts of kindness with strangers on the street...LOVE! Because without love, what the hell is the point?
                                            HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!