![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
2004- Looking Back On A Year Of My Life
Jan. 1st, 2005 06:08 pm2004 – Completed. So many adjectives apply to this past year of my life, but those definitely don’t include "uneventful" or "unchanging." It was a year of enormous change, quantum changes in some cases that have contributed to what I am. It was far from easy, but I am more because of them.
By far the strongest influence to come into my life was Theatre@First. It became part of my life way back in January, and so it has had a whole year to become the huge and valued entity that it is. I’ve written dozens of posts about it so no need to recount what we’ve done together and where we’re going. But my love and thanks go out to the many, many new people who have entered my life through the T@F door. You are a wonderful family to me.
Most of the people reading this are ones I didn’t know this time last year. In fact I can think of only one who I knew before then, because we worked together. I have old friends, and I have more new friends than I ever thought I’d make in a lifetime. I met more new people in this past year than I’d met in the 5 years preceding it.
The winter started with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and a job layoff that had been coming for a while. It set me free from a dead-end job, but the search for a new professional home would take longer than I thought. I temped, but there were other things I was focused on.
Springtime brought with it one of the most devastating heartbreaks of my entire life, pain more shattering than I thought I was capable of feeling. Closeness came unexpectedly and departed more unexpectedly. I’m removed enough from it now that I know I learned something very important from it. I would do anything to avoid that ever happening again, and I’ve learned the questions I need to ask, the self-knowledge I need to keep close to me when opening up to love. I will carry that scar for life, but it was a learning scar, and a hard but broadening step on a long journey.
May took me to California, for the renewing and healing of the desert. A trusted old friend/lover was there to meet me in LA, and we camped and traveled over 600 miles of Death Valley and the Mojave Desert. Its impossible to imaging a desert night sky until you’ve watched it from the floor of Death Valley on a moonless night. And I learned that mirages really do exist.
June, and the play festival. We conquered a play (Philip Glass Buys A Loaf Of Bread) that we had thought would be undoable. New people joined T@F who are now major players. And talented new friends.
All the while, I have been bouncing from one unfulfilling temp position to another, having no luck finding a permanent position. In August, a temp agency that I ordinarily didn’t trust placed me at a publishing house for a three-week gig. I fell in love with it, and did everything I needed to convince them to keep me. In September I was hired permanently, and my search was over.
One thing I was not at all prepared for this year was coping with life once you must wear the yoke of the numeral 40. No one ever warned me of the immediate changes in the way the world regards you, and as a woman, how societal and personal perspectives of you change in a matter of one day. Not everyone feels it that acutely, I know. But going into that 40th birthday I had actually been excited and felt very sexy. Nobody told me about the psychological shovel-slam in the face I was about to get. It really wasn’t until I was able to stop fighting against the number, and embrace it as something I’d earned, even won, that I’ve been able to get back to the place where I can feel young, sexy, sexual, and valuable in the world for everything I have to offer. I just turned 41 last week, and I’m enjoying my age much, much more.
The fall brought Murder In The Cathedral, a massive challenge in the amount of lines alone, and the even bigger challenge of taking on a leadership position in the company. I learned that I have much to learn about large group leadership, was able to watch myself in a position I’d always imagined myself in but pictured myself very differently than they way to came together in actual life. I plan to see how I can apply the things I learned with that experience on future projects.
November came, along with the wonderful, inspiring trip to Scotland. The second half of the year really did make up for the first. I wish the trip could have lasted months. Maybe someday it will, though there’s lots of the world I want to see.
The holidays met with the first peaceful visit with my family in several years. And last week, I became vegetarian. Lots of New Years kisses from lots of happy friends brought the brand new year in warmly.
This time next year I’ll be sitting somewhere writing up another all too abridged summary of a year in my life, 2005. Do you ever stop and wonder about all the unknown things that will happen in your life that year, and smile just a little?
:-)
Happy New Year!
By far the strongest influence to come into my life was Theatre@First. It became part of my life way back in January, and so it has had a whole year to become the huge and valued entity that it is. I’ve written dozens of posts about it so no need to recount what we’ve done together and where we’re going. But my love and thanks go out to the many, many new people who have entered my life through the T@F door. You are a wonderful family to me.
Most of the people reading this are ones I didn’t know this time last year. In fact I can think of only one who I knew before then, because we worked together. I have old friends, and I have more new friends than I ever thought I’d make in a lifetime. I met more new people in this past year than I’d met in the 5 years preceding it.
The winter started with Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, and a job layoff that had been coming for a while. It set me free from a dead-end job, but the search for a new professional home would take longer than I thought. I temped, but there were other things I was focused on.
Springtime brought with it one of the most devastating heartbreaks of my entire life, pain more shattering than I thought I was capable of feeling. Closeness came unexpectedly and departed more unexpectedly. I’m removed enough from it now that I know I learned something very important from it. I would do anything to avoid that ever happening again, and I’ve learned the questions I need to ask, the self-knowledge I need to keep close to me when opening up to love. I will carry that scar for life, but it was a learning scar, and a hard but broadening step on a long journey.
May took me to California, for the renewing and healing of the desert. A trusted old friend/lover was there to meet me in LA, and we camped and traveled over 600 miles of Death Valley and the Mojave Desert. Its impossible to imaging a desert night sky until you’ve watched it from the floor of Death Valley on a moonless night. And I learned that mirages really do exist.
June, and the play festival. We conquered a play (Philip Glass Buys A Loaf Of Bread) that we had thought would be undoable. New people joined T@F who are now major players. And talented new friends.
All the while, I have been bouncing from one unfulfilling temp position to another, having no luck finding a permanent position. In August, a temp agency that I ordinarily didn’t trust placed me at a publishing house for a three-week gig. I fell in love with it, and did everything I needed to convince them to keep me. In September I was hired permanently, and my search was over.
One thing I was not at all prepared for this year was coping with life once you must wear the yoke of the numeral 40. No one ever warned me of the immediate changes in the way the world regards you, and as a woman, how societal and personal perspectives of you change in a matter of one day. Not everyone feels it that acutely, I know. But going into that 40th birthday I had actually been excited and felt very sexy. Nobody told me about the psychological shovel-slam in the face I was about to get. It really wasn’t until I was able to stop fighting against the number, and embrace it as something I’d earned, even won, that I’ve been able to get back to the place where I can feel young, sexy, sexual, and valuable in the world for everything I have to offer. I just turned 41 last week, and I’m enjoying my age much, much more.
The fall brought Murder In The Cathedral, a massive challenge in the amount of lines alone, and the even bigger challenge of taking on a leadership position in the company. I learned that I have much to learn about large group leadership, was able to watch myself in a position I’d always imagined myself in but pictured myself very differently than they way to came together in actual life. I plan to see how I can apply the things I learned with that experience on future projects.
November came, along with the wonderful, inspiring trip to Scotland. The second half of the year really did make up for the first. I wish the trip could have lasted months. Maybe someday it will, though there’s lots of the world I want to see.
The holidays met with the first peaceful visit with my family in several years. And last week, I became vegetarian. Lots of New Years kisses from lots of happy friends brought the brand new year in warmly.
This time next year I’ll be sitting somewhere writing up another all too abridged summary of a year in my life, 2005. Do you ever stop and wonder about all the unknown things that will happen in your life that year, and smile just a little?
:-)
Happy New Year!