Positive Focus Sunday - '2023 For Me'

    I prided myself on making it through the first year or so of the 'pandemic' just fine. I was working and saving for my new home. Everyone else was confined to their home and I was out, mask on, working away. I survived 'remote' library and 'remoteness' in general. 

    Then I got my house and I had basically a year of moving in and trying to settle into home ownership and being 'planted' somewhere. Texter was 'in' the house after a couple of months and then 'out' again after a few months, but we were both on tenterhooks as to what was going on and what path she, and I, would be taking at that point in time. 

    So here comes 2022.

    Texter and Mr. Cobra are doing well and living together. And while that seemed to be going full-steam ahead, there was still a bit of apprehension on my part of 'would it last?' It has also been a time when Lady K was with her dad for yet another school year, something which was very foreign to us, not having her with us all the time. Texter is engaged, with wedding plans for the near future. Mr. Cobra not letting her get away.

    Savvy and Mr. Arizona headed back to Arizona, selling their home to friends, packing up and leaving. They are settled in and Savvy is happily working away at a job she loves. So, all well there, too.

    And here I sit. The only thing I have to worry about are a slew of 4-legged beings and myself and I'm not handling it very well. Or as well as I thought I would once I became an empty-nester. 

    I think a lot of 'it' has come about from writing on my memoir/cookbook. The writing has focused on the past, of course, and it has dredged up a lot of things I had shut away. And while my family and I have cut ties years ago, I am realizing I am basically following a family tradition in that aspect. So I am ok with that. What I need to do is to visualize my life as it is today. AND GET MY SHIT TOGETHER!

    In thinking about what isn't working and what has changed in my life, I start beating up on myself. After all, I have a dear friend who lost her spouse last year and she is having to figure out what her life is going to be like. I haven't lost anyone, but maybe myself.

    I have another friend who lost her spouse several years ago and has put her life together and moving forward in a different direction than she thought she would be going. 

   Again, here I sit.

    So...

    2022 as far as I'm concerned has been a bust for me. Check it off as an experience and let's move on. I need to get my head on straight and make plans for ME - no one else, just me. 

    I am DETERMINED (hint, hint - word of the year perhaps?) to build the next 50 years (I'm optimistic) around me and what I want and need in my life. I can no long use the excuse of things not working out because of 'the kids' or a job I don't like (but am thankful for that monthly pension check) or not getting things I think I want to do, done, because of some outside reason. Everything boils down to ME - what to I want and need, where do I want to go, and how am I going to get there!

    The coming year will be full of exciting new things and making new friends. At the same time, I have a core of valued existing friends I am not going to give up for the world (a warning to them!). I am going to concentrate on not dwelling in the past and what didn't work then, but planning for the future and the things which will work. 

    So stay tuned (hopefully) and see what happens.