So close I can taste it...

This past year has changed me. I can honestly say I've gotten tougher, though it's not like a was a light-weight to begin with. I feel like a rock that's been made into granite.

Last year this time, I had no idea what was in store for me in 2009. I thought I would get closer to my goals and closer to who I thought I wanted to be. It could not have taken me further away from where I thought I was going. In a way, it provided me with new goals and shook me to my core. 2009 told me I wasn't as strong as I thought I was. It told me not to believe everything I see and all that people tell me. It took away another innocence veil and fed my inner skeptic even more.

Family issues coupled with the loss of my job flung me out into the outer reaches of space. I wasn't who I thought I was, since the two main dictators of identity were throwing me up after a night of hard drinking. I'm not one to dwell or live in the past, but I definitely had to make it through both of those before I could move on. I'm still not past the family issue, but I am working on it.

Friends I thought would be there for me tossed me out as well. Roads they were forced to take became the "best routes" and the "way to go". My path became overgrown and inconsequential.

For stretches of time, there was no one to depend on. No office mates to lunch with, no family to rely on, no friends to download to. All I had was myself.

I remember quite vividly the exact moment in my pre-teen life that I realized that we all die alone. No matter when or where or with whom, we must all go on to where ever it is alone. That first panic attack was a doozy. I had always been surrounded by family, friends, people, animals. To envision walking the lonely path to the other side was unbearable. I was young and naive. Now I feel old and jaded. But resilient. No one would walk through life with me - why would they want to walk to my death with me?

So tonight when the clock hits midnight, instead of reveling in the memories and planning future goals, I won't be expecting anything of 2010. I have a feeling I won't be alone.

Updated NetworthIQ

Today's NetworthIQ update is the official last update with all of my credit cards unpaid. Tomorrow (read: next month), the numbers will begin to look differently.

They will begin to be real.

Like a band-aid...

I woke up this morning and didn't want to go through it anymore. I didn't want to search for credit cards and past bills and remember to log-in and pay the minimum amount. I didn't want to log my progress in a notebook or put reminders for bills due on my calendar online. I wanted it done. I wanted them gone. In the past two months, I've received more "shut down your account or risk having an inflated apr" notices. Some, from my longest held credit cards. I felt like saying, "I thought you were my friends."

You arrived in the mail when I was at college and didn't get any other snail mail. You had fancy forms to fill out that made me feel like an adult. You lured me in and now, on the cusp of my seeming adulthood, you want to banish me from your record. Or sear me with a high apr. I'm not your piece of meat to play with. I understand your ways. I realize by me paying minimums and not really spending anymore, I'm not adding to your bottom line. I'm not making any one of your fat cat's parachutes a little more golden.

So I took them all and like a band-aid, ripped them all off. "Paid in full" is what will come to my little mailbox now. I have switched the roles. I have the leverage now. I will not use you anymore for my silly happiness. I will restrict myself to the bare essentials and enjoy myself by doing so. Your crutch is useless to me now. I don't even know where all of my cards are right now. True, this is not incredibly responsible, but in a way, it is. Instead of freezing them in a block of ice, I've taken to "losing them" around my house (really hiding them) so I cannot access them. When I do run into them, it's usually not during an online spending spree urge or trip to the mall.

Just in time for credit companies to make millions on others who overspent for the holidays, I will be rich with the free time and worry-free mentality that paying them all off has granted me.

There is no better late Christmas present.

I'm becoming my parents...

Nothing like saying that phrase to get you all depressed right before the holidays.

I literally have no need for doctors anymore. I used to chide my parents for not getting annual check-ups and making an appointment at the first sign of any malady. Nowadays, it's me who puts off calling the doctor. I have literally had something wrong with me for 3 months (and counting!). If I had insurance, it would have been dealt with. Since I do not, I have procrastinated. Which leads me to believe that my parents had something correct in their assessment of doctors.

In the past year, I have mentioned certain symptoms to my primary care physician who either shrugged them off or told me I was a hypochondriac. And while I will not dispute the latter, I was not acting so much so like a hypochondriac in his presence for him to assume that. A second opinion, you say? Yes, that would have been good. But I didn't. Partly because I was so married to my job at the time, that I couldn't think of taking whole hours away to attend appointments.

I guess only time will tell if I break down and finally go to the doctor. I really don't want to. At least now I finally understand where my parents are coming from with their judgment.

Old Maid

I don't know where I am going. I know where I've been. I've lost focus in my life and feel like I'm just putting in time. I actually feel stranger now with a job than I did when I was unemployed. Other people around me have gotten married and are having babies. Some haven't, and their lives break my heart. Mainly because I feel they are spinning, just like me.

We're all spinning in some no-man's-land without anything holding us down and still nothing really happening for us.

I passed on a lot of typical personal milestones... serious relationships, lots of friends, marriage, babies, etc. since I've been so focused on getting things done (education, job, etc.). I've had friends but have kept them at a distance. I've had boyfriends and have squeezed them so tightly with my emotional needs (since I don't rely on lots of friends) that their heads have popped off and they left, headless down an alley. Or acted like jerks and then left.

I've seen friends get married and have babies and then have the world. Or at least act like it. I'm not sure I want that. I haven't so far. I've had boyfriends talk of marriage, break up with me and then marry the next one to come along. I say I dodged a bullet. And crafted a perfectly good candidate for marriage for a total stranger. But then why am I so envious of their lives?

I've had boyfriends waste my time. Lie to me. Keep secrets that I found out anyways (and once didn't let on for years). Only to have it come back and bite me when our relationship was so far gone that I realize I should have let him go when I found out.

People say you'll meet the man you'll marry and just know it. I guess I haven't. And I'm not getting any younger. I was always so focused on school and then later a career to worry about settling down or timing my decisions to find and marry a man. I fear that my time put into myself hasn't really amounted to much. Sound harsh? Perhaps that's why I have no friends.

A lot of work

So this new position has me more busy than my last. I'm not complaining - I am happy I have a job. I'm just not used to the intense amount of work. The long hours I used to have were rewarded in some ways. This company does not offer as many perks. But it does pay. And it is rewarding in other ways, besides a paycheck.

You'd think after months of having nothing to do, I'd be happy to have things to get done. And I am. However, I feel like I'm neglecting me a bit. I don't have time to work out, hang out or sometimes just relax. My bank account is whole now, next it's time for my personal life to be whole.