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December 31, 2006 ~ Twelve
Sunday.
This is a WordGoddess collaboration. I'm going to go ahead and bunch the last bit of December 2005 in with "this year," since that is when my life so fundamentally changed.
12 people who've made a difference in your life this last year:
Grove, Morgan, Monty, Rose, Mom, John (my step-father), Valerie (my mother-in-law), Larry (step-father-in-law), Bob (father-in-law), Micah (step-mother-in-law), the midwives, my friends, Morgan's friend Joel, and all the people who stuck with this journal despite the yawning gaps, and there's many more but that's already more than twelve.
11 things you'd put into a time capsule from the last year:
My hospital bracelet. The still-unwrapped aspirator bulb from the homebirth kit. A little of Rose's and Monty's shed fur. Bills. All the entries from this journal and all the pictures I've taken this year. One of the outfits Grove wore when he was newborn. Some personal correspondence. Copies of The Laurel, Critter Magazine, and Western North Carolina Woman, the three magazines my photos were published in. My "I voted" sticker. Impossible to capture as it is, the sweet clean smell of Grove's breath. Plane tickets.
10 things this past year has taught you:
Giving birth to Grove taught me that I can do anything, and I am much stronger than I knew (one). Love of a child is the most fierce and overwhelming emotion I've ever known (two). Finacial problems suck even more when you have a child to worry about (three). Even when I have every reason to be happy, depression can come knocking (four). Never, ever stop hiking, and don't let myself get so isolated (five), especially when my body chemistry is so against me. I can forgive myself (six). I am very good at being a mother (seven). I can't possibly keep up with everything I want to with a baby to take care of, but that it's okay--he's only this small for a little while (eight). That my writing isn't the only thing that I should try to get published (nine). That giving birth would be such a... traumatic experience, even though it was also a good and beautiful experience, that I'd have a lot of healing to do after, and that both my body and my soul will probably both be permanently broken from it, but that "broken" in such a way can be a good thing, at least on the part of my soul (ten, whew.).
9 things you could have done without:
Postpartum depression. Hospital bills. Having to use the credit card to pay off the impossibly large hospital bills. The havoc the higher credit card bills caused in our budget. As a result, the need to use the credit card to pay for necessary things like food and doctor visits, thus bigger credit bills, thus even less monthly money... Yeah, snowball effect? However, the good thing is that I don't have a full nine things to fill this list out.
8 of the best books you've read and/or movies you've seen:
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. I enjoyed all of the Earthsea books by Usula K LeGuin, but I especially loved the second The Tombs of Atuan and the fourth Tehanu. I had some complaints about Stephen King's The Stand, but I would have to include it in the best I've read this year. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster. Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. The entire Dark Is Rising series by Susan Cooper is good. And I'm in the middle of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy--I loved the first two books, but the third is not quite as good so far. We'll see. Oops, that was more than eight, wasn't it... I want to throw a movie in, though, to be fair. Hm. Maybe two, because I think it's a tie for best one we've seen this year. V for Vendetta is probably the best dystopia movie I've ever seen. And Brokeback Mountain was extremely sad, but also very powerful.
7 little (or not so little) things you've done to make the/your world a better place:
Started raising Grove to be kind to others, to respect and revere nature, to love animals, to have compassion--in general to be a good person. Served on the board of and volunteered for the wolfdog rescue. Used my photography to publicize the plight of wolfdogs in three widely-circulated magazines. Voted, followed the news, and wrote to my representatives. Continued to pare down any unnecessary purchases, recycled, reused, found ways to use less, switched to more environmentally friendly products where I could, used cloth diapers and reusable feminine products, hardly drove at all, and generally did everything in as environmentally friendly of a way as possible. Pulled myself out of a heavy depression. Shared my life and my ideas with others.
6 things you'd like the New Year to bring:
An end to our excess debts (ie, aside from student loans). A way for me to make some extra money. Time to devote to professional writing. Better fitness. Less stress for Morgan. Some real change in the American government.
5 things you're grateful for today:
My health and the health of my family and friends. Family and friends. Love. My strengths and talents and my newfound drive to use them. This beautiful, mysterious world.
4 gifts you'd like to give:
A date (to Morgan, of course). A happy and magical childhood to Grove. A teleporter to all of my far away family and friends. An affordable and non-corrupt healthcare system to the United States.... (Wow, that spiraled quickly into the realm of the absurd, didn't it? And no, I'm not talking about the teleporters.)
3 gifts you'd like to receive:
Debts paid. Debts paid. And debts paid. That would free us of such a huge burden I wouldn't need anything else.
2 things you wish you'd done this last year:
Kept in better touch with friends. Kept this journal more regularly. (And I also wish I'd found a way to continue hiking over the summer when Grove got too big for the sling and the depression got so bad. And keep up with thank you cards. And answered e-mails...)
1 thing that surprised you the most this year:
How naturally and easily I'd take to this role of "mother" and spending all of my time with Grove.
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