It's that time of year again...

When everybody and their brother is doing 'end of the year'/'best of the year/'year in review' posts.

And who am I to buck tradition?

2013 was not nearly the shit show that 2012 was (although it certainly was the year a lot more curse words showed up regularly in my vocabulary), but it was the year when the hell of 2012 caught up with me.  (And a lot of other people, I think.)

So I spent the majority of the year swamped with a grief that was terrifying and incommunicable for me - I was constantly feeling that it shouldn't be this bad, or still this bad - and couldn't seem to explain to people just how bad it was, so I shut up about it. As is evidenced by the severe lack of pre-November posts on this blog: the smallest number since it's inception 8 years ago. It seems it's easier for me to write through illness and pain, and people dying and caring for the dying, and betrayal and hurt, than the feelings that all of those things leave in their wake.

Shocker.

I still can't explain how the first half of the year passed by so quickly, and how the second half of the year felt like I was waking up from a coma. Somewhere around my birthday, though, there was a shift, and I started to think "Ok, if I don't snap out of this soon, it's going to get really bad." So I made myself do some things that were good for me  - and I really mean made myself: getting out of the house seemed even more Herculean than ever, but I sometimes managed it.  And, slowly but surely, somethings started looking up.

For example, 2013 was the year I became a fledgling Whovian & Nerdfighter; It was the year I finally did some of the things I said I wanted to be doing - going book signings (some more successful than others); outings with grown-ups!; Investing a large sum of money (for me) in a camera that does (mostly) what I tell it to do!; Joining tumblr (and letting the reblogs begin!) & finding spoonies to connect with, locally and all over the world.

It was the year I stopped giving (so much of) a damn about what other people's expectations of me might be, and just embraced my inner geekiness to a level that still does not plumb the depths of my inner nerd-capabilities. (I dressed up on Halloween for trick-or-treaters! I bought a skirt with comic book print all over it to wear to Boston Comic-Con next year. I claimed my Hufflepuff-ness! I did Disney crafts and showed them to people! I made my niece and nephew watch The Hobbit (which they liked)!) I'm going to keep on going, and one of these days my family will be embarrassed to be seen with me because I am geeking out over something that I am probably too old to be geeking out over, and I will be proud of that.

2013 was the year I called the cops on my dad, after months of suffering his abuse (or letting my mom suffer his abuse) in silence: I did it because it was the right thing to do, and I don't care if a large portion of my family disagrees with me or thinks I should have handled it differently or is telling me I'm being to harsh with him now (by basically ignoring him) - I know I did the right thing then, and that ignoring him now is saving me from being hurt even further. So I'm going to keep doing what I have to do, and everybody else can just deal with how uncomfortable it makes them. There's a whole lot of discomfort coming up, if I'm any judge: I think my mom is truly done and that there's going to be a separation and house selling and change of circumstances for everybody very shortly. It's going to hurt all around, and everybody is going to have their own emotions to deal with, and I'm just going to do my best to be there for people without letting them trample my own feelings in the process. (Therein lies the trickery.)

2013 was also the year that I saw a baby born. Which was powerful in a way I thought people were exaggerating - having never given birth myself, or been present in the room at anyone's birth besides my own.  The idea that I spent time this year watching a new person show up on earth, to in fact be the first person to see him show up on earth is still unbelievable to me.  I almost can't explain how touching it was - and how much that whole experience, rife with my sister being a warrior princess who almost died and my other sister showing up in ways that ultimately cost her and just sitting in that room, in the dark, in the (pardon the pun) pregnant silence beforehand, while my sister gathered her resources and praised the Gods of Epidurals: Every painful moment and hard-earned bruise, every countdown from ten and impatient toe tapping; every bathroom light flickering off at opportune moments, and the instantaneous relief when the baby cried, when the nurse came back from surgery to tell us my sister was fine - I will relish Every. Single. Second. of that experience. Forever.

2013's theme word/phrase was "perhaps", and a lot of those perhaps-es were not what I expected.  A bunch of them came out of nowhere and mowed me down, left me to pick myself back up. A few of them were sparkling solitary moments of crystal clear perfection in an otherwise tornado of a life.

Those moments are what I'm trying to hold on to right now, as we all end out the year - Seeing the baby's head after a very long day; seeing my sister and her husband, fast asleep, while I held their little one and told him how much he was loved; watching NephTwo laugh in the line as we waited for Santa (on what he swears will be his last year); reading a blog post and laughing so hard I thought I'd choke; snuggling with Lil Girl right before she fell asleep and turned into a sleep ninja; the look of pure dread on Oldest Nephew's face when the waiters started singing 'happy birthday'; holding my mother's trembling hand as I played her patient during her CNA exam; SisterK's pixie cut and how it made her look like a grown-up, all of the sudden; SisterJ's laughter returning after a frighteningly long absence; the text from my brother telling me he'd gotten married; writing a book and learning way too much about the Spanish Flu; watching a friend get married - so far away! - over the internet, and marveling at the world we live in now; playing Apples to Apples with teenagers who didn't know what the Cold War or who Eddie Murphy was; chocolate fondue for my birthday - So many tiny, excellent moments in this whirlwind of a year that started out so bleak, and could have ended the same way.

I'm in for some changes, the New Year is sure to bring them, and 2014 is coming whether we're ready or not. So, just a quick 'thank you' to all of you who've helped make my 2013 so special - Spoonies, Twitter Friends, Tumblrarians, Nerdfighters, People I Blog Stalk, and my (wonderful, fantastic, couldn't have done it without you) everyday readers. Thank you, for sticking with me, for helping me see some things I wanted to avoid, and for sticking around through the gloomy times. 

Here's hoping 2014 is packing a whole lot of happiness in whatever punch it's preparing for us all!

Miracle of miracles.

July rolls out; August rolls in, NTE finally manages a new post.

We're gearing up for SisterCh's baby shower on Sunday - it's Baby Mickey themed, and although I haven't done a ton of the planning/crafting, I've dabbled a little and made some cute things. I'm excited, except for how I also hate showers, which seems to be the general consensus about showers: that they're boring and annoying, but we do it anyways, because we love people.  I, personally, hate the idea of having to open presents in front of a bunch of other people (although my brother did make a good point about, how, at Christmas time this is exactly what I want us to do, each person opening gifts slowly and one at a time, which NEVER HAPPENS, but that's different, because it's just us), and I find it awkward to be watching somebody else opening presents, so that's just a weird type of party to be having, I suppose.  Showers are awesome because you get stuff you really need (not that I would know: Being single and childless, you really get screwed on this whole gift-giving side of the deal, especially, since I'm living at home, I've never even got so much as a housewarming present), but pretty much every lady I know has showers on their eye-roll, 'is it mandatory' list.  Hopefully, Sunday will still be fun, regardless of said awkwardness, because SisterJ has put a lot into planning it, and has done some tremendous work.  I'll try to remember to post some pictures next week: when you see SisterCh's belly, you're just going to want to rub it, she's totally adorable.

What else? I've met with a new primary care doc, and he seems - ok.  No giant red flags; pretty good listener, did give me a speech about weight, but it didn't seem to be his primary concern (which is good, because it sure as hell ain't mine). I'm thinking of starting the search for a therapist, as my feelings seem to be at a constant simmer lately - as if just one little bump up on the heat and I'll boil over.  Not necessarily in anger (although there's that, mostly in relation to my dad), but also sadness, or jealousy, or boredom, or just feeling completely bereft. There's not a whole lot of happiness boiling over, unfortunately. 

    ALTHOUGH - and this is a big one - I am 95% finished with a project that has taken me nearly 3 years to complete: the organization of my aunt's photographs.  When I started, I never realized it would be this difficult, but there were so many stages -

•  Because she was a smoker, I had to air out all the books for months before I could even touch them; 
• Then I had to find a way to get the books that were in albums (all those sticky paged albums, complete with yellow edges and disgusting brown corners) out of the albums without ruining them, 
• Then I had to flatten them enough to be scanned (so, more months of waiting),
•  Then I had to scan them all; 
• After that came the arduous task of identifying the particulars of each photograph and labeling them all - both physically and on the computer file - which was not easy, because a) nearly 3/4 of them were not identified previously, so I had to do a lot of asking, and comparing her photos with our photos  - I am a total Veronica Mars/Nancy Drew/Girl Sleuth, btw: I know who had what haircut in which year, who moved to which house when; what year the back porch was screened in, which dog lived in which backyard, and who drove the green car in which years before they passed it down to the next person - to get to all the answers, and 
• Then I had to put them all in some sort of reasonable order  -3/4 chronological, with exceptions made for trips (which nobody remembers what year they took them in plus, they took pictures of every animal in the zoo and that is stupid boring) and things like car shows (again, that nobody really cares about in the timeline of their lives).  
• Now I am finally putting them into actual albums (non-sticky, thank the lord).
• After that all I gotta do is put all the computer files together and dropbox them to her kids/my sibs, whoever wants them.

    Plus, in the course of those three years, I was
 - living at Grandmother's house for the summer - once for my own good, and then for hers (but neither time with access to the photos);
- helping raise some childrens; -
 having major sinus surgery & then recuperating;
- dealing with at least 22 major flares;
- grieving;
- dealing with all my family's bs;
- and a whole lot of other things I can barely remember. 

So, it's not like it was three constant years of work, but it was in my brain as a "to do" for three years (and definitely in my aunt's brain: she did not let me forget that I had her pictures, not even a little bit), and so finishing it will be a huge relief and I cannot overestimate how happy it will make me. Just putting all the pictures in the books right now (final stages! hooray!) is making me want to do a happy dance, even if it is tedious to stuff albums for four hours.  But to be able to clear something off my plate at this point and go: That was freaking hard, and I did an awesome job?  Ah-maz-ing.  Probably nobody is going to appreciate just how much work I put in (nobody even noticed when I did ours, or Nana's, really): I mean I counted candles on birthday cakes and pulled out the family bible for names long forgotten, and dug out my grandmother's pictures so that my aunt could have more pictures from her own childhood in her albums, but all my aunt will see is that one picture she knew she took on a trip to Lake George in the late 1980s that I haven't been able to find.  But I'm going to be ok with that, because I know I rocked it, and I'm going to give myself some major kudos.  Maybe even buy myself a present. Suggestions welcome!

Anyways, that's the latest from near the beach in Massachusetts (not that I've set one toe on sand this whole year, but it's still the truth).  How's all you fine folks out there in blogland?