I am reluctant to say goodbye to 2011 for that reason alone. When this year started my father was living. My father and I would talk about 2012 and the potential end of the world. Perhaps that is also part of what makes this so hard. He and I used to theorize and research all the potential myths and facts about the end of the world and now he won’t be here to count it down with me.

2011 brought me the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. On August 31st a piece of me died with my hero. My father wasn’t perfect but he was mine. He was my rock, my friend, and my hero.

On November 15th I met the man I love, so 2011 also brought me a missing puzzle piece. It brought me the only man who has been able to chase away the lingering ghosts in my heart.

Maybe I’m afraid to move forward. I’m afraid to wipe the slate clean and embrace a new day, a new month, a new year with a new chapter in my life.

I’m afraid to let go of the past. I don’t want to start a year without my father. I don’t want to continue forward. I want to pause time and live in this moment a little longer. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know if I won’t lose anyone else and so I’d stay in today if I could. I’d stay in 2011.

Usually, I’m so excited for the new year. I look forward to these new beginnings. I look forward to making resolutions. Even with my heart not in it, I’ll lay down my hopes for this new year. I’ll lay down my ideas and promises and do the best to fulfill them.

2012 Resolutions

1. Perhaps the most important, I need to be a better Diabetic. I will keep an accurate record of my blood sugar and while I will never swear off all sweets I will certainly try to cut back and work out more. I want to be healthy, not just for me but for the people I love. I am tired of making them worry.

2. This is the most important for my soul: I will write. I have let life get in the way a lot this year. My greatest fear is waking up one day and being unable to create or worse yet waking up one day and realizing it’s been years since I spoke with my use. I will write, even if it’s just reviving this blog.

3. I will start trying to reconcile my debt. I know it cannot be accomplished in one year but I at the very least need to get my student loan out of default so that I may go back to college this fall. I can’t live my life as a cashier at my local grocery store. It’s a living, but it’s not what I’m meant for.

I’m sure there will be other goals along the way but these are my major concerns. These are my resolutions for the coming year. Good luck friends, family, and constant readers. I hope to see you all in the next year. Hopefully it brings you happiness. This year took a lot of out me. It crippled pieces of me. It brought a wound that will never heal, and will only hurt more in time. This year will bring many more firsts, like my first birthday without my dad. This too, could be a reason I don’t welcome the new year but it comes anyway: ready or not here it comes.

I remember the first time we broke up, it was for all of three days before I cut my hair to get his attention and it worked. I knew he’d like it. It got us talking again. For almost a year it didn’t matter what happened or who we were with, when we came to our senses everything else was just collateral damage.

Friends remind me that I wasn’t always happy. No, at the end I wasn’t happy but that was about me as much as it was about him.

Did he do things I didn’t like? Of course, but I also loved him. There was this connection I’ve never felt since. He wasn’t perfect but neither was I, yet somehow we were perfect for each other.

Every now and again fate would throw us together but somehow we never made the commitment. His mum told me he still missed me and I knew I still missed him but I guess the timing was off. Life is a complicated thing.

He’s with someone else now. I’ve tried to sway him but he isn’t leaving her. He’s admitted to having feelings and we talk in secret. He says things he shouldn’t and I play along because I’ll settle for whatever this is in order to be in his life. I have all the proof I need to tip the scales and ruin them. All I’d have to do is contact her and show her my phone. I doubt they’d make up after that. He’d be mad but I figure he’d forgive me someday and yet…I never do it.

If you love something let it go.

If it comes back never let go again.

I don’t know that I believe the part about it never having been yours if it doesn’t come back, because once upon a time he was mine. I was young, and stupid, but he made me a lot of what I am. He made me feel okay about who I am. My scars were just proof of my strength. Even when I was breaking apart he never doubted that strength.

If you love something let it go.

I still love him, so I’ll let him figure it out. Maybe he’ll come back. Maybe fate will throw us one more chance and this time I won’t take no for an answer. Bohemian Prince is the mold by which every other has been judged. I didn’t realize that for a long time but in the quiet of night it always comes down to how things are different. For better or worse he’s the standard.

If you love something let it go.

If it comes back, it’s meant to be.

This book is a must read for anyone who enjoyed Harry Potter, House of Night, Twilight, and countless others. The story is fast paced and almost impossible not to fall in love with. In the beginning I was as confused as Clary about the new world she’d found herself in. I’d found myself telling Jace to make his move.

That being said…Spoiler Alert ahead.

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Still with me, alright. Somehow I imagine Valentine (who reminds me a lot of Voldermort-a cookie cutter bad guy who wants to purify the race and make a super army) smirking as he tells Jace, “I am your father.” Not to mention the discovery of Jace and Clary being brother and sister. I found myself extremely disappointed. I really, really wanted them together. The more I think about it, the more it reminds me of Star Wars.

Clary herself seems to be the product of Harry Potter and Bella Swan meeting and having a child. She’s clumsy, smart, and alone. Not to mention she discovers herself thrown into a world of creatures she never knew about. She has within her mind locked the ability to find the mortal cup. She has these moments of greatness.

All in all it reminds me a lot of Harry Potter and yet has a risky voice all of its own. We have Jace who is handsome and stubborn, his best friend Alec who pines away for him while staying in the closet, Isabelle the young warrior goddess, Simon the human who can’t stay away, and Clary who holds unknown powers. I can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

I usually read before bed, but these stories kept me awake if I did that. If I read them during the evening hours it wasn’t by the dim light of a book light but rather every light in the room on because each story is dark, each story creates its own battle, leaves its own scars-not only on the characters but on the reader.

The jacket on the book said the third story was the most disturbing, I wasn’t sure of that until I’d finished it and thought about it in retrospect.

In 1922 I was reminded of The Yellow WallPaper which is one of my favorite early American short stories. It was a tale of madness, a haunting, and maybe even truth. I felt the same way about 1922. How much do we trust our narrator? Is he crazy? Is he sane? And while I felt so sympathy for him I couldn’t put the story down. Because by the end of it, wouldn’t you have done the same thing?

In Big Driver I don’t hesitate to identify with our main character because she is clearly the victim. But, has this monster inside of her always existed lurking beneath the surface or was it created by the devastating event. Each step of the way I question her sanity a little more.

The final story puts to question what would happen if the wife of a serial killer actually knew what her husband was up too. It gave me chills. How would you ever sleep again knowing the person you loved and trusted most in the world was doing unspeakable things to women and even one child when they weren’t home? It truly makes you wonder how well you can know anyone.

In all four stories we are forced to question ourselves. Would we react the way the character did? Would we find ourselves alone in the dark with someone we no longer know or trust? How can you condemn any of them? How can you blame them? How can you not be disgusted? How can you not in your own way be changed?

As I stood at Jill’s grave and admitted my fears I realized something. I have no idea who I am anymore. I often shrug off my academic probation and account it to a “mini-nervous breakdown” last spring. I promised myself closure and healing over the summer and one day I realized I was okay. I was happy with who I am. I was content to be single. Did the old fears still linger? Certainly, but now is my chance to be the person I want to be. Now is a chance not to make the same mistakes and yet…here we go again.

I have a crush on this guy who makes the butterflies flutter in my stomach every time he smiles. My best guy friend is starting to get feelings for me. And I hooked up with a guy I scarcely know.

Do I learn nothing from my past?

I think about the note I wrote after hooking up with Everyone’s Favorite Asshole and how I asked myself this same question. I was supposed to have learned from my encounters with Master of Pretty, Empty Words. I was supposed to have learned from my mistakes with Everyone’s Favorite Asshole. I’m not supposed to be this girl!

I keep thinking about the girl I used to be.

Once upon a time I dreamed of Happily-Ever-After and quickly life taught me the hard way that such a thing doesn’t exist. I adopted new beliefs, new codes and not for the first time I have broken them. I’m sick of breaking them. I’m sick of doing things that later I sit around and wish I hadn’t. I can’t find it in myself to regret them but every fiber of my being tells me to turn tail and run. Danger ahead!

I find it hard to imagine being in love, to imagine trusting someone with so much and having them destroy me as so many have done. More than anything I want to be able to take things slow, get to know someone, fall in love, and be able to love them like I’ve never been hurt. Yet, I’m damaged goods. I don’t want to be caged, claimed but I also don’t want to be the girl I am now. I don’t want to give myself over so easily. In many ways I am completely sick of the physical. It only complicates everything!

I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know what I want…except maybe I do. Despite all my fears I want to meet someone, I want to date, and I want to do this right. I want to go back in time, grab myself, and ask me what the hell I think I’m about to do! There are all these moments in my life where I wonder, was it worth it?

Was going against my morals worth it? Was pushing him away worth it? Was never saying what I really felt worth it?

No.

It was never worth it. I want a do-over in more than one place in my life but we make mistakes and we learn from them. Lately I haven’t been heeding my lessons and now I’m feeling backed into a corner and scorning myself. Maybe I’m just attracted to the chaos and here we go on another stroll through disaster. Maybe I can fix this. Maybe I can find the strength to stand up for the girl who once believed in love, the girl who has done so much just to feel loved, the girl who is caged in The Darkness and begs for release.

I deserve better than this. It’s time I remember it and live by it. People always think it’s easy to be true to yourself. It’s so simple, so cliche, and yet so difficult.