word for 2010: blaze

this is year 3 in the word department. 2008 was complete, 2009 was thrive - 2010 looks as if it is supposed to be BLAZE.

i don't know where that is going to take me. thrive went places i never could have imagined. hope blaze doesn't burn my house to the ground.

here's what it looks like in the visual thesaurus: BLAZE

thesaurus.com shows me that this is going to be a dangerous year.

it started with a piece of art that lisa samson posted to her facebook. it was of a tree in all four seasons - the fall season (where it feels like i am in my life) said BLAZE. this connected deeply with an ah-ha i had years ago at linwood house when i participated in "the path" with many blogger friends. we did an exercise that asked us which of the four elements we resonated with - earth, wind, fire or water. i knew immediately that i was fire. that metaphor has been one of the best tools i have ever used in understanding of self and my journey.

blaze called to that and i have been pondering it for the past few months. like thrive i tried to shove it away, but it just keeps coming back and nothing has arisen to replace it - and because i have run out of days it seems as if, like an unwanted cat that insists on following me around for the next 365 days... so welcome blaze. for all the good and the bad that you are i embrace you - teach me things about myself and my relationship to god and those around me please.

3 months, 6 months, 12 months...

it feels like a year since i have really written anything of note here. actually probably more like 13 months. i couldn't post that last piece without some update so that those of you who might still have my rss feed in your readers would fear that i had my own descent into madness. nothing like that, although these past few months have been more difficult than i'd care to admit.

13 months ago i began journaling every night before bed - one page - and minus one night in the hospital w/ buck when he held onto life by a very thin thread last february i have not broken the chain. it scrapes off the crud and has been the best tool i have ever used in my recovery. i am usually quite incoherent lately when i am scrawling that page, exhaustion at the end of the day depletes any real journalistic beauty - but i sit on the edge of that bed and force myself to write - and it works. i guess it's taken away a lot of the need i had to vent here. or maybe it's gotten me to a deeper place where even an anonymous blog is too open to air my life? i'm not sure - only know that this place rarely feels like home anymore.

buying our home was a true high point this year, but dealing with trades and finances has been brutal. it has only been in the past few weeks that we have had any semblance of normal back. many of the weeks/months were marked by much fear and anxiety as neither liam or i are from financial backgrounds that had any stability or training. this is new ground for us and we are growing up and taking responsibility for ourselves in new ways, but but it can be terrifying at times and we have few crutches left in our lives to lean on.

living without finances, food or alcohol to ease the pain and fear is a very ragged place at times. our margins wear thin quickly and the edges cut and bruise easily. i had fallen into a strange codependence with a couple and was the buffer for their relationship. it got weirder and uglier and i was so enmeshed into their lives very little of my own was being lived. i guess i take my addictions where i can when limiting my regular options. the pain was just too real to bear alone... that is gone now too and the bleakness of the longest day of the year presses in on me.

looking so forward to the days getting longer, even though winter must be weathered in the midst of this personal storm.

but all is not lost. we four laugh and leisure well together. living far from extended family is difficult during the holidays though. community has crumbled as i stepped away from the codependency and while new friendships and interactions are arising to take their place in healthy, whole ways the vacuum is still quite real and present and sitting with it today brings tears and grief.

i have been pouring myself into art and creating these past couple months. it has soothed my soul on the days where nothing else could or would. i am awakening an artist within and finding beauty and long lost confidence amidst the lies and tapes of old. i am ready for the holiday preparations to be over so that i can return to my paints, markers and pencils. i created two gifts for my children and i am so happy with them. they are framed and finished and beautiful. i also made a gift for myself with mixed media - an old forgotten 1/2 painted dollar store canvas, a favorite christmas card saved, rhinestones, vintage letter stickers and acrylics turned into a dark, moody holiday painting that i am truly proud of. it was a gift to myself for st. lucia day.

i never imagined that my word for 2009 would end up being about lack instead of abundance, but thriving even amidst the famine is truly where thriving becomes thriving. i have embraced that word this year in thought and deed, and although friends are few and far between i am finding that thriving in solitude is more possible than i had ever imagined.

miles and miles have passed

i can't even remember the last time i have sat down to really blog. life has become so full, in a good way, but it has kept me from this thing that i love called blogging. i was emailing with erin (biscotti brain) and told her that in the last 24 hours i feel like i've given birth to myself.

on friday i found out that the university i attend was looking for a kind of dean of students/chaplain position and both liam and a good friend encouraged me to apply. i know they have some internal people applying for the job, and they will most likely have a much better chance, but i knew that my gifts were a good fit for this position and that the process would be helpful for me. i realized also that i have not done a resume for myself in 20 years! 20 years! i have not been paid to work (except casually for projects) in since i had kids and our daughter just turned 13. previous to that i worked for the same employer for 6 years. needless to say it was an effort to turn all of the volunteer work i have done into a career.

some good friends held space for me and challenged me and gave me the much needed push to put this together and yesterday i faxed it off to the president of the school and felt a mental exhaustion very similar to the physical exhaustion i had after giving birth to my kids. i know that this was part of the "thrive" process and i think that april 20th, 2009 was a birthing day for me.

yesterday we put in an offer on the home of our dreams (needs lots of work, so there might be a few nightmares before the actual dreaminess happens), applied for a mortgage and i applied for TWO jobs! after i sent off the resume i was blog reading and one of the gadget blogs i read is looking for an editor. i could do that job for free (don't tell them) because i would enjoy it so much, and even sending off the email was fun. don't know if any or all of these doors will open, but being willing to risk was so important.

the house we had been waiting for (it was a bankruptcy of a failed flip by one of our good friends) finally went on the market last week, but i couldn't move forward on it because i truly believed in my heart that i did not deserve to live in such a grand home. one of my best friends here was furious with me for thinking that way. when we went to move forward we found out that there was an accepted offer already on the house. i was crestfallen. i tought it was another couple from our church who i knew was looking too. i was at least happy that we were going to "keep it in the family". our broker though encouraged us to still bring our carpenter on site and put a bid together in case it fell through.

while standing across the street with my broker and carpenter a van drove up and a woman got out. turned out she was the lady who had the offer in - and she is a known quantity in the community. i was upset that it was not my friends who"won". i had met her casually years previous at her garage sale where she proceeded to tell me (a complete stranger) about her husband's nervous breakdown. i know if i skeedaddled she would give way more information to "my guys" there after i left.

i spoke with my broker later and he said that she (unasked) gave the information that she was having trouble with funding - so he said GET DOWN HERE MONDAY A.M. and we'll put the offer in... we did and while there may be others that offer that we know nothing about we have most likely the least unemcumbered offer of the bunch. we probably won't hear until later in the week as banks are very slow moving (as we know from waiting about 8 months for them to get the house on the market).

i realized after my friend was so furious with me that i had stopped reaching. stopped hoping. i had thought that contentment meant "making do" - and while there is something healthy in that, there can be a lot of broken too. i was content, and i was not "hope-less", but i was not hoping any more. i was not reaching. i was living in fear of disappointment. i told erin that in the 12 hours following i realized that i truly was strong enough to hope again. i was strong enough to have what i dreamed of, and strong enough to bear the disappointment of not getting what i was reaching for - but that it was the reaching that was the important part. so i have begun dreaming again.

so yesterday i felt like i grew up, stretched out my arms and said HERE I AM. as i finished my journal writing last night i wrote with a smile "I'm thriving! I'm thriving!" we'll possibly see how thriving and disappointment can go hand in hand next week... sigh. no risk, no chance, no hope. i want to live with hope, and i am strong enough to be disappointed.

word for 2009 :thrive:

i have been praying for a word for 2009 the past month. a few weeks ago my blogger friend, the onion boy, owen had surgery and i checked up on him on facebook and saw his signature word :thrive: there. i thought "oh that's such a beautiful word - maybe that could be my word for this year"... then that little critical voice in my head said "oh sure, pick a nice, easy word - who doesn't want to thrive? isn't that a bit selfish of a word for the year? maybe your word should have something to do with hard work instead of something easy?" ah the critical voice, so painful and crushing, eh?

so i set the word aside waiting for another. it kept circling back in my thoughts. thrive... thrive... i really liked it, but again it felt selfish.

another facebook friend had posted that she was thinking about her word for the year in her update and i commented that thrive was whirling through my head, but i hadn't really had enough confirmation to pick it yet. after posting that i sat down with the novel i am reading "The Bean Trees" by Barbara Kingsolver and came upon the chapter where she takes Turtle to the doctor - the term "failure to thrive" appeared 3x in that chapter. it was enough of a confirmation that this was the word, failing another pressing itself into my world, for 2009.

we stayed home and played hooky from church today. i had purchased liam 'praying in color' for christmas and we took time today to make art and pray in color as a family. it was a beautiful time.

this has been a season of loss in my family. one of my cousins dropped dead of a massive heart attack last week, and another is struggling for life in the hospital as i type (unless he passed mercifully last night). both are/were only 50ish. neither had shown any signs of sickness. my art page had the name of my cousin and his mom (my favorite aunt) and images surrounding their names that were meaningful to me.

after we finished our pieces i was still feeling artsy (and liam had included his possible word for 2009 on his art) so i thought to make a page featuring "thrive". i got a bit stumped on the art front and headed toward the word front and looked up THRIVE at thesaurus.com:

Main Entry: thrive

Part of Speech: verb

Definition: do well

Synonyms: advance, arrive, batten, bear fruit, bloom, blossom, boom, burgeon, develop, flourish, get ahead*, get fat, get on*, get places, get there, grow, grow rich, increase, make a go, mushroom*, progress, prosper, radiate, rise, score*, shine, shoot up, succeed, turn out well, wax

Antonyms: decline, fail, languish, lose

(the "get fat" one made me laugh out loud! i plan on that being only a metaphor for the fatness of my soul!)

these past years have been about establishing a good root system that can sustain this "thriving" - maybe this year can be about what grows from that?

thank you owen - i hope you don't mind me borrowing your word! :D

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