is a single mama in the city, super-savvy editor, writer, video host and shameless shoe whore.
Farewell to 2007
Tuesday, January 1, 2008 
It is the first day of 2008. It has been a long year full of many moments, some magical, some memorable, some lost in the dust of an ending marriage. Some of what has been is being swept up to clear space for new things, new plans, new ways of living.
And as much as I might say that with some very real sense of centeredness, the details of clearing space, the logistics of finding space, the exhaustion of making space are all still very real, very present.
For the first time as a parent, I hired a babysitter on New Year's Eve, put on something sparkly and had a very fun night. For me, the investment was far beyond the cash I handed over to the adorable and lovely sitter perched on my parents' couch with her laptop and cup of tea and hand-knit funky hat. It was an investment in what I had and am releasing and what is ahead and full of possibility.
For the first time ever, I heard the words of Auld Lang Syne with (more) understanding (because I am pretty sure we're not meant to completely get that song, which is why we usually sing it drunky) and I felt ready for a few farewells as I toasted and welcomed the New Year. At least for now, I say good-bye to the things and ways and people I know may return in some form or another, but that I need to let go of to ring in what I really need:
Farewell to not feeling healthy or happy or at home in my own home.
Farewell, at least for now, to my former home.
Farewell to the marriage I thought was forever to the man that I thought I knew or at least to the man I knew as my husband.
Farewell to the guilt about the ways I tried to save things, even in desperation, in tears and in panic.
Farewell to any thought that my boy would be better
with parents together than parents apart, even though everything that
was going on was going on.
Farewell to any hesitancy to expect the truth from the people who I love the most.
Farewell to good credit (but we shall, I am sure of it, meet again).
Farewell to the sad weight lost (we may meet again, poundage, but it will not be because of sadness).
Farewell to the things sitting idle in the apartment
that I no longer am attached to or at least have let go of my
Dear-Diary-like desperate need to have in my possession (I may need you
yet and have you again but for now, you do not matter...heat-resistant
silicon spatulas, I am speaking directly to you).
Farewell to the joint accounts and credit cards in
two names. Farewell to the dual loans and the financial attachment to
another person.
Farewell to the signifiers of my former life. At least the ones that used to shine.
Farewell to that feeling that a limb has been torn
from my body. The pain may return but there is grace in the numbness
that has set in. Numbness and detachment. And confidence.
Farewell to the blame and the accusations that I let have power over me, even for weeks or days or minutes at a time.
Farewell to any concern that I'd be alone in this.
Farewell to a fall, a winter, a season, a year marred
by the toughest decisions I've ever had to make in a turn of my life I
never thought I'd see.
Farewell to those silly thoughts that my grrrlfriends
might not understand because they haven't been in this exact place
themselves.
Farewell to any doubt whether I was strong enough to endure.
Farewell to snoring (please God, farewell to that for good).
Farewell to trust (but we shall be reacquainted in time).
Farewell to Heroes and Las Vegas and Blade Runner and
Bears games and all those stupid fucking shows I sat through or didn't
but just put up with anyway because of love and the promised trade-off
of America's Next Top Model or Brothers & Sisters or something
clearly far more engaging and wise to watch.
Farewell to man hair. Be ye gone forevermore.
Farewell to fourteen laundry loads of workout t-shirts and stiff socks. And good Lord, the athlete foot spray.
Farewell to Blues Traveler, Jimi Hendrix, Rusted Root
and dozens of instrumental pseudo-Native American drumming CDs. Feel
free to take the post-frat boy/high schooler frat boy wannabe hard
alternarock radio station setting with you.
Farewell to energy drinks lining the refrigerator and Costconormous peanut butter in the pantry.
Farewell to my shame in never printing off the proofs
of the wedding pictures, in not having my wedding dress heirloomed and
in the big box of remaining monogrammed thank you notes collecting dust
for five years.
Farewell to the idea I had of who I was and what my
life was like -- in the wonder and bliss and complete joy as well as in
the in the box of "married mother" I wrapped around myself.
Farewell to the attorney's retainer, which disappeared far more quickly than I imagined.
Farewell, at least today (because friendships turn as
easily as marriages for the goobiness and the heartache), who see
relationships as custody agreements as well or who look at me like
divorce is a rapidly-spreading staph infection that they will catch if
they stand too close when they nod and give a courtesy sympathy smile.
I get it. It hits close. I am working at not being hurt by that or
taking it personally.
Farewell to far more stereo components, little hidden speakers and empty DVD boxes than one family needs.
Farewell to the couch (I do not miss you).
Farewell to what was.
But hello, to what can be. I raise my glass and my
cardboard marabou tiara to you, possibilities. And the rest, I am going
to try my hardest to release to the universe. Or at least elsewhere,
beyond my no-longer new temporary home, away from me, far from now.
Farewell 2007. You brought me far and to corners of
my world I never thought I'd see. But here I am and so good-bye. I have
a lot more to see now, a lot more to find in aught-eight.
Reader Comments (6)
And echoing the loveliness of getting to divorce Blade Runner along with too many stereo components. Most of which didn't work.
Looking forward to watching you kick 2008 in the tushie!
I started my Project:Life Change today...so I am looking forward to making it work in 2008.
May 2008 be an incredible year for all of us.... especially YOU! You certainly deserve it.
big hugs from california!
Jill