New Years Eve

So its boxing day today, Xmas is over bar the shouting and its another day closer to New Years eve.
New Years eve last year is laser cut into my memory like stone. My best friend died this year while we were on holiday together in Asia. On that trip we were doing all sorts of stuff that we always wanted to do, but had never given ourselves permission to try. Staying at a really fancy hotel (my god how wasteful our mothers would say)instead of a backpackers, having pedicures, manicures, shopping frivolously, reflexology, make-overs, shopping for Armani sunglasses, visiting silk factories - total indulgence :)
Last New Years eve neither of us had plans, her boyfriend was working and my mother had gone to babysit my sisters kids (my mother lived with me at that time, that is a whole 5 posts in itself....how to mindfuck yourself in 730 days) so we decided to watch a movie, make some killer fruit punch (heavy on the vodka light on the fruit) and have a girls night.
We ended up watching The Secret (power of attraction)and stayed up till 2.30am making lists and creating dream charts....sounds a little new age wacky, but we were into it. We talked about what kind of lives we wanted, what our hopes were, where we wanted to be in 6 months, what sort of people did we want to be.
In hindsight it was a really special night, a gift. I can remember it all so clearly, especially working over my dining room table to create our charts and being a little competitive because we're both creative and finnicky.
Sharing indulgent food (expensive cheese, pesto, hummus, nuts, chocolates, crackers etc) and good conversation, talking and laughing, exploring dreams. 6 months later we were in Asia fulfilling some of those dreams, we really were. Our attitudes were like teenage girls, we had finally got to a place where we weren't constantly feeling guilty. That we might deserve some of this fun and craziness.
Our girls had grown and left home, our struggles as single parents were over, we had survived and we were coming into our own..........until she fucking died on me.

The first year of losing someone close is always marked in comparison to the last year, constant evaluation of what I was doing with that person at that time, etc, etc. So expect a few posts of this nature. Its been 6 months since her departure and she has been with me alot this week. My mind constantly flicks back to New Years eve 2006, a quiet night, two best friends, a DVD, scissors, magazines, glue, giggles, paper and dreams.

I fight myself on a daily basis. I have an internal civil war going on. I fight the guilt and the pain. I run towards the abyss and I run away. There is a little room inside me, where a light no bigger than a matchhead shines. Its glow is small but constant. That light is for hope. That light is to say to myself, her death was not a punishment for your frivolty, she left when she needed to, her dreams fulfilled. But there are other demons inside me and the energy that feeds them is old, hence the civil war.
I believe my mind is my most powerful tool and the only path to freedom. I work on it day by day, encouraging, coercing, threatening, pleading, shouting, whispering. Somedays I feel bloodied and beaten, other days I skip like I'm 5 yrs old.
Today I'm 41 and quiet. I'm going to finish off a couple of oddjobs around the house. I want to be prepared for New Years eve, when I step from this year into next year with my eyes open and my hands on the wheel. 5 days and counting :)


h2