i came into reverb a little late last year, and i’m not sure i did the “one word” post. i can’t find it, so i’ll presume i didn’t. i don’t really want to think about what my 2010 word would have been – it wouldn’t have been very positive.
this year, man, this year. my word for this year, 2011, is possible.
i had to do some reflecting on this year for the stratejoy council i’m participating in, and i mentioned last night to the bouncer that i don’t even remember the months before march, when i started looking for a new job. i can imagine it was the same in and out of going to my old, hated job every day, and well, hating most every day and feeling so very trapped. but i don’t remember it.
i do remember the intense waves of glitter sparkle possibility that started washing over me when i realized that i could do something else. that i could maybe be happy every day, that misery doesn’t have to be a function of work.
i remember them coming as i realized that i didn’t have to be a sad, mourning mess anymore. that i could begin to heal and close those wounds. that i could even change what they’ve done to me. that i have a choice.
i remember them when it began to dawn on me that i have someone who is willing to try with me. every single day.
this was a year of amazing possibility. i don’t know for sure that everything it’s applied to will pan out forever – but when do we ever know such things? i am so grateful for every drop of possibility that touched my life this year – and there have been many.
i wrote an entry earlier this year about what this feels like for me, which is a whole lot more poetic than this post.
in projecting a word that i might choose for 2012, i’ll go with forward. i really want to take all of these little dewdrops of possible that have collected all over my world and do something. i’ve done my dance through them and it’s time i gather them all up and skip further along. specific action items? sure. decorate my house. maybe even paint. enroll in a web development certificate program. attend professional development things. journal. revamp my relationship.
yay guys, reverb is back!!
‘Intense waves of glitter sparkle possibility’. Love.
thank you – i’m really fond of those as well. and welcome! so nice to have a new reader from #reverb11 already š
Misery doesn’t have to be a function of work.
What a fantastic lesson to have learned this year. I am so glad that I have witnessed (albeit from afar) your move into something worthy of you. ā„
Love it!
I followed you over here from Kim’s reverb post I believe. I haven’t written mine yet. Mommying comes first… and I had to stop to say… these words you wrote on her blog spoke to me. I will most likely use them in my post today:
āBrave warrior of realnessā
This is something I am pledging to be, just never had a title for it. THANK YOU!
it is the most accurate phrase i could think of to describe her – and yes, i should pledge to be one as well! not always the easy road, but so much more valuable, i think.
PSHAW. Oh, Julie. I really missed you. And Dominique, you flatter me. I am a warrior of jack. I promise you that I am so chicken.
here’s mine: http://leah-onesnap.blogspot.com/
Possibility does sparkle and forward will too. I just know it.
Great words! Inspiring. I love the word possibility. It’s such a wonderful word when you think of all the wonderful things that are possible.
I do love this post. I remember you before you left your old job compared to now. Night and day. I am so happy for you. Forward into 2012!
**Little Dewdrops of Possible**
Great title for a book. Or an album. Or a name for a band…
This makes me smile.
Not just the dewdrops bit. Though, how can you not smile at dewdrops?
But mostly how this revelation has opened inside you. Blossomed, really.
Through a whole lot of pain, I feel like this year has been a good year for you – in a big picture kind of way. I’m really looking forward to your reverberations. Mayhaps I’ll do my best to reverberate too.
About this post:
I started reading you early in the year after Reverb had ended, I think, and you reminded me of another girl I know, whose writing I’d been reading since she was a teen. And I was shy to butt in and comment because December feels like this time of otherworldly online cocktail parties and everyone chats but January is so different because we’re on our own. But I came back a few more times and read some more, and still you evoked this amazing girl (who is now in a top MFA program for creative writin’, jsyk). You both wrote loss and pain and anger with such precision and such set jaws.
And then the change, when you were looking for work and then after, when you got the job and took to it like you were born to do this work. It really is amazing, when I think back, because I didn’t know you for long enough to be surprised by what you had in you or what you didn’t. And it was still like the sun coming up out of the fucking dark.
Also, paint. It makes such a world of difference. It is a pain in the ass, to be sure, but it is cheap and you can listen to whatever you want and in a couple of days, everything feels different.
Yes, this next year has to be the year when I create a huge distance between the words ‘misery’ and ‘work’ – thanks for reminding me it’s entirely possible.