Another year older and what do ya get?

In less than 2 hours, I will have passed another year on this planet. What a strange year it has been.

It started with a Guinness and a kiss at a suburban bar with some brand new friends and a lot of musing about how old I am getting. It included a few huge bumps in the road and a few crushing heartaches, but it also included some amazingly happy things.

In a lot of ways, my 32^nd year was the first year of a whole new life for me and, well, whenever there’s a new or fresh start, there are going to be growing pains. I get that and I am mostly just grateful to have had the chance to grow so much.

I think the most important thing for me, from a personal perspective, was becoming closer with someone who would challenge me on a lot of different levels. This person has taught me how kind and forgiving I can be (a lot more than I once thought),how high my capacity for jealousy really is, how open I am to my own spiritual side, and that I can, in fact, draw. He has also helped me to be more patient with those around me and to see myself as more than just a brain and a body. Most importantly though. He has taught me that I am valuable and strong.

I don’t say this nearly enough, especially as the grind of everyday life continues on, but I am very lucky that we have found each other and that we continue to grow together.

It can be hard for me, at times, to see myself as one whole integrated person. I think this is because, for much of my life, I have been a variety of things to a variety of people, but never many things at once. I am good at separating out things like my intellect or my looks or my sense of humor and wearing whichever was appropriate like a mask in any given situation. At school, I am intellectual me. At home, I am caregiver me and responsible me. At work, I was funny me and responsible me (and frequently bitchy me). With friends I am funny me or caring me. The things is that when you’re good at separating these parts of yourself out, you sometimes forget to put them back together.

This is, I think, where my SO comes in. As I get older, I notice more and more that the spiritual part of me is what needs to be nurtured the most. I often forget that part because it doesn’t serve the practical material things as much as the other parts of me do. Fortunately, this year with Chuck has challenged me to be open to that more than I have in a long time.

In the coming year, as I continue to grow and we continue to grow together it is this part of myself that I hope to nurture the most. It’s the part I nearly always keep hidden and the part that is not afraid to say that it is afraid and needy and insecure, just like we all are sometimes.

I am a lucky woman to have someone in my life who allows me to grow in this way.