Goodbye 2009, Welcome 2010

Wow. What a year 2009 has been. It hasn't been the worst (I think 1995 still claims that one), but it hasn't been the best (in retrospect, I think 2004 or 2005 would have that title). It was what it was.

Unfortunate things (I don't want to label them as "bad" necessarily):

1) Time-management issues. I have a problem: I get bored easily and I tend to cram my schedule, but then I get too busy and freak out. In the fall, I was a teacher by day, grad student by night, theatre board member/stage manager on the weekends, girlfriend whenever I could, teacher leader at school and member of a HLSR committee. Seriously, what was I thinking? Unfortunately, it's going to look like this until April-June, when I will be dropping two of those things.

2) Dealings with an ex-friend. This was probably the hardest for me. 8 years of a tumultuous friendship ended very suddenly after having a very good couple of months. The easy part of losing this friendship was not having to deal with any stress, bouts of feelings of low self-worth and uncertainty that I often felt when dealing with this friend. The lies and betrayal and evilness that made the split so violent (verbally, not physically) aided in the ease of my choosing to exit this friendship. The hard part of the split is that when our friendship was good, it was really good. Never had I had so many things in common with someone, never had I had someone who knew me so well. But, 5 months later, I still believe that ending the friendship was the best for me. But in 2009, this person made me cry, made me angry, made me feel anxious, made me doubt my life and second-guess my choices. For that, this is a 2009 unfortunate event.

3) Weight gain. There, I said it. Due to numbers 1 and 2 and 4, I've put on weight. I'm not near what I was at my heaviest, but I haven't been this heavy in 7 years.

4) Cartilage damage in my ankle and knee. Yeah, this sucked. The doctor told me no more running - after a break and 3 sprains in my left ankle, plus tendonitis, he said that my long-distance running days were over. I have very little cartilage left in my ankle (so that bone-on-bone feeling really was bone-on-bone). And my knee... yeah, I had a fall back in 2006 or 2007 and messed it up. Then, in late July, I fell and hurt it again. Since then, it's bothersome. With the ankle, I wasn't allowed to really exercise for about 2 months and the knee stopped me exercising for a couple of weeks. Hence... weight gain.

Hmm. Now that I look back, I guess thing weren't all that bad. But those three things, little as they seem, created a cloud over my head that makes me feel as though they were worse.

So now, let's look at the fortunate things..

1) I got my first musical starring role. True, the theatre was small, and true, the musical wasn't the best, but I had a solo!

2) I got to direct my first Shakespeare play - "Much Ado About Nothing." It was fun, it was great and it was successful. So successful, I'm directing "A Midsummer's Night Dream" this summer.

3) I met a great guy. Well, I met him in the end of 2008 (in December), but we officially started dating seriously in 2009. We've had our ups and downs (including an intentional sabotage by my ex-friend, and other external issues that people close to me know about), but we're doing well. He's successful, he's funny, my family love him, he treats me better than any other man has and he is just a great guy. We've been discussing marriage, so unless a specific external issue causes more problems, 2010 might be a very good year for me.

4) Grad school. I started and I'm conquering. I'm finally working on my master's, and I have a 4.0 GPA. I have 3 more semesters of class and 2 semesters of thesis work.

5) Traveling. I went to several places this year that I've never been: Memphis (which wasn't that great, but I got to go), Chicago (which was very fun and I get to go again this year) and Cocoa Beach, FL (for the shuttle launch - wow!)

6) No one close to me died. Considering I went to 14 funerals in 4 years (high school and college), this is a good thing. I have little family left, and they're all healthy.

So what's in store for 2010? Here are my hopes and plans...

1) Weight loss. I plan to lose 40 pounds by July 17 - all my weight gain and then some. If I lose 40 pounds in 6.5 months, I'll be a very happy (and healthy) camper. And I will do this by doing what I did 8 years ago - working out 60-90 minutes a day, 6 days a week; drinking lots of water; seriously decreasing processed foods. Now, however, with less time, I will have to cook enough food for days and use workout DVDS (since the drive to and from the gym can equal 30 minutes, and that's 30 minutes I can use doing something else). I'm excited about the DVDs - I lost 100 pounds without ever setting food in a gym, thanks to DVDs. I think the gym isn't better because I find myself hitting the elliptical for 60 minutes at a time, which isn't bad, but the DVDs work different muscles. And since I've been keeping up my muscle tone even through the weight gain, I'll be using 10-15 pound hand weights for all of the cardio-weight DVDs I have (yay for Jillian Michaels).

2) Time-management - I won't do as many extra things. My term as teacher leader will end in June, and I won't apply for it again. My term as a member of the board of the theatre will end in April, and I won't run again. I won't serve on extra committees at work for a while. Work (teaching) and grad school really take up so much time that I need to focus on both and enjoy extra time to relax.

3) Travel. I know I'm going to Chicago again in April, and I hope to go back to NY this spring to visit Christine and her brand-new (2 days old!) baby. Richard and I have also decided that we're going to put money aside each month for a travel fund and go somewhere. Our first trip will be either to Ireland or Italy.

4) Stress-relief. I have to do something else about stress relief because eating isn't solving problems. Maybe Yoga. Maybe journaling every day. Hmm. I like the journaling thing. I might go buy a new journal today. A fresh, clean one for 2010. I've found a few older journals, each one half written in, but there's something refreshing about a clean journal. And at least there's one thing I won't be writing about in this journal.

5) Grad school. I will maintain my 4.0. I'm taking two classes in the spring - European Crises and Latin American Independence Movements. Both should end up with an A (since those are the same professors I had last semester and I know their writing styles). And as for the fall... who knows. I may take another Latin American class and another European History class.

So, that's it. Funny, my list doesn't look like it's that difficult. Maybe I can actually achieve them!

Cheers!