How do you measure a year?

Another year, come and gone.

I am not one to dwell on resolutions, mourning a year past, or celebrating a new year coming.Everyone always says they hope this year is better then last...or that things go better. Lets face it...

This year will have it's ups and downs just like every other year.

Bad things are bound to happen. Good times are sure to come. That is life.

However something feels different to me this time around...
I guess I feel like THIS new year is a clean slate.
Okay...ok..maybe not a "clean slate".... Maybe I just feel like it's time to stop sobbing, and pouting and hoping for things I should have given up on a long time ago.
Perhaps it is time for me to focus on myself, and not on saving people who do not wish to be saved.

It is simply too easy to look at my husband (yes, we're still "technically married"...as he calls it) and think about all the bad things that happened to him during that deployment...all the terrible things he witnessed, and saw....all the heartbreaking situations he had been in. It is easy to dwell on all those situations. Over the last year, I have failed to remind myself that during that heart wrenching deployment, he also had an affair, betrayed my trust, and lied to me constantly.He broke every vow we took, he broke my trust, but most importantly, he broke me.

I've made a self conscious choice to dwell on neither of those things...(the poor him, or the poor me.) At least, to try not too. I've decided that I don't need to save him. I don't need to hate him either. What I need to do is get my life on track and stop wondering where I went wrong and how I can save everyone and everything. I just need to save myself at this point...let people take the fall for their own actions. I must realize, I did not go wrong. I have been the best me I could be. I was faithful, I was loyal, and I was grateful. I may never have been the best wife in the world, but I gave him all of me, and I trusted him with that.

Anyways....back to this new year..

I already quit smoking, so I can check that off my list of things I would like to get done this year.After, four or so years, I officially gave it up on December 3rd, 2011. I had a couple on Christmas because I was drinking and stressed the hell out, but other then that I have been a trooper! I'm quite proud of myself. I don't think I ever really believed I would stick to it...but I have!

What else do I want to do this year? 
1. Go to school. I'm undecided, and the classes I'm registered for start on the 9th.
We will see in the next week which path I choose to take with that.

2. NOT have a mental break down when my baby bear turns two in three months! -- Lord, where did the time go?! ((-Speaking of the lord.... Jaxson and I have been saying our prayers every night before bed...and now when you tell Jaxson to send a kiss to Jesus he blows a kiss up twords the ceiling... it IS the cutest thing you could ever witness! ))

3. Love myself. --Inside and Out.

4. I have been saving pop tabs from cans for the last two months. When I reach ten pounds I'm donating the money from them to breast cancer research. --In the name of a very important fallen soldier. Breast Cancer, in honor of my Grandma. In this fallen soldiers name, because well..he's awesome.

5. Write more. I have sort of fallen out of my blog, and it used to be such a good source of release for me. I would really like to get back into the swing of things.

6. Be the best mom I can be, keep my son happy and healthy! :)

7. Live this entire year, without a single regret. Lessons learned-yes! But I would like all of my choices to have meaning and reason, and not be something I will later say "why the hell did I do that?!"

It's easy to measure a year in terms of success and failures...in terms of months...weeks...days...
But why measure a year at all.
The months, weeks days do not matter.

It's the moments we will never forget that mean the most..

For it is the moments we will never forget in which we have learned our most valuable lessons, witnessed our most treasured memories, or experienced something truly life changing....

And for that, this year, and always.. I am grateful.



As always....
AA