Evolving into Me

Yesterday was a ... strange day. I was reasonably good at work, but I was awful to SO in the morning, I was tired and snappy, but then I apologised and resolved to be better. Usually, he reacts by sulking and it takes a while to be 'normal' again but yesterday, I suppose the apology helped, we were back to normal by the time we saw each other again. We had a nice, fun evening and I'm feeling all optimistic.

2012 was a good year financially, I was saving, mainly for the baby, but I was saving maniacally. As a result, I was nice and comfortable. In the 3 months in the US and the subsequent month, I've spent a lot more than I'd have liked, and due to home loan issues, I'm not sure how much I need to save in 2013, so oddly, I feel insecure about money. It's still early days, and this will sort itself out eventually, but it's interesting. What it means is, that this year, my personal goals may not include as much travel as I'd have liked.

I think this year I want to do things, (1) become a runner; (2) learn to play a musical instrument. I'm keeping this vague because I really want to learn to play the piano, but we have no room and I can't afford one, so it'll be a guitar, but I really want to learn music. I enjoy music a lot, and I'm excited about learning to make it.

When I was in my early 20s or maybe late 20s, beginning to be exposed to people from other cultures and races, I felt under-equipped. That as a child, my parents didn't try to get me into enough (they did try, carnatic classical, bharatnatyam dance, hindustani music - harmonium, but I wasn't interested), and over the years, as my earning ability increased, my skill got a level of easy competence, I found free time, time to indulge in hobbies and try stuff. Which is how I'm going to evolve into me.

Happy New Year!

It's a new year, and new years are all about hope. All about the possibilities and maybes, and I'm alternately thrilled and terrified. Thrilled because possibilities are very exciting, terrified because the flip side of the positive possibilities are not so exciting :)

My cousin posted this on her Facebook and I dismissed her anxieties (albeit only in my mind) because I don't think she should be identifying with it. I don't identify with the writer on a personality level, but I do identify with some specific things she said. Namely "...unhappily married people live with a particularly viral strain of loneliness, and the interesting thing about loneliness is it forces you to confront yourself." And maybe this is what has happened to me. I've admitted to myself that it's been getting progressively lonelier for me in this marriage, whereas SO has seen it as getting more secure, but there you have it. I have therefore been forced to confront myself and now find myself on the verge of being 'skinless and shivering'.

After being in a relationship for over a decade and being married for 5 years, I find that SO's family have become my family. I treat them much like I do my own, I fuss over some of them, bully others, think about some fondly and others less so, etc. And the thought of ridding myself of this family as well as the presumed security of being married is what has me on the edge of skinless, what's really depressing is that on the bad days, I would almost prefer to be skinless and shivering, than the alternative, which on bad days feels like my heart is being shredded. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

That said, it is a new year, with wonderful possibilities, and I'm still clear that I can be more than I have been so far. Not dramatically more, maybe, but certainly incrementally more.