|
2003 Wrap-Up I don't usually do a year-end wrap-up, but I've seen it on a lot of sites this year and thought - why not? I didn't journal as much this year as I usually do, so perhaps the wrap-up will help me remember a little more of what actually happened. JANUARY I begin the year very depressed, and it is mostly caused by the state of the world in which we live. I begin graduate school and don't really like my first class. I do not journal at all and remember very little of the month. FEBRUARY Depression continues. I begin watching Days of Our Lives again, because I can do little else. I work. I go to school, and my disillusionment with my first graduate class continues. I write one journal entry. Greg and I decide to take a vacation to Ireland in May. MARCH I have a lot of acupuncture treatments, and they help. The horrible depression lifts. I feel no better about the state of our world but I am able to function on a daily basis again. I am frustrated and bored by my Romanticism class, which is really crushing since Romanticism is what drove me into graduate school in the first place. We sponsor a soldier through Adopt A Platoon. I write a little more and rant about the biased, propaganda-like war coverage and the third Anne of Green Gables TV miniseries. APRIL I continue the acupuncture and my physical energy returns. We get new bedroom furniture, a wedding gift from Greg's parents. The house begins to be clean, I paint a bathroom, I dig up flower beds, do taxes, have sex, start cooking again, go out to dinner, and finish planning the Ireland trip. Spring arrives. My crappy class ends and I receive an A-. I see The Last Five Years. I decide to take my country back and support Howard Dean for President. (It is not a fucking phase, nor is it something to be mocked.) Greg's uncle dies. I turn thirty-one and Patti sends me a lovely gift. MAY My grandfather is in the hospital for over a week. His heart only functions at 50% of its normal capacity and will never fully recover. I graduate summa cum laude from Rowan University after trying to get my B.A. for thirteen years, and am very disappointed by how non-important it seems to be to most of the people in my life, and then I get over it. Buffy ends and I am more depressed about it than I ever thought possible over a TV show. We spend two amazing weeks in Ireland, and never finish writing about it in my journal. JUNE I take a hiatus! Mostly. I write a little about graduation and a little about Ireland, but not enough about either. I have auditions for Annie Get Your Gun and cast the show. Greg and I spend a long weekend in Rochester at his family reunion. I go to a Sherman Alexie reading, strawberry picking, a minor-league baseball game, Gabriel's latest play, Thoroughly Modern Millie, and Erica's wedding reception. I have no time to read or sleep, and not a single free weekend day in the entire month. JULY I am even busier. I rehearse four nights a week for AGYG and the show goes up at the end of the month. I work at Toronto Trek (where Anthony Stewart Head is our headliner) as the guest liaison to Gil Gerard. I attend the American Idol tour concert with Steve, a family luau, and begin Weight Watchers. We buy a blue Honda Civic. I end the previous incarnation of this journal because my mother gave the URL to family members and start a blog, which I neglect shamefully. AUGUST AGYG closes without a hitch. I hold auditions for You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown and cast the show. Greg and I take my parents and brother to see Bruce Springsteen. We spend three days in the Poconos. I stop WW, having lost fourteen pounds. Somehow, even though I am between rehearsal periods, I have no time. I do not journal. SEPTEMBER The not-journaling thing continues. I feel too exposed here. Rehearsals for Charlie Brown begin. The new semester begins, and this time, I love my class. September is consumed by school, work, and rehearsals. OCTOBER Charlie Brown goes up. It is fantastic. It is the best directing experience of my life. The audience loves it. I love my kids. They love me. It is a big lovefest. I am officially diagnosed with ADD, and I do not discuss it here. I start taking Concerta. I am officially diagnosed with IBS and begin sweeping dietary changes. I attend JournalCon Austin, where I get sick, and spend three days in Boston. I begin selling Howard Dean tshirts. I am still depressed, as I have been for most of the year. Words are few and far between. NOVEMBER Finally, I have no rehearsals of any kind. I am very, very tired. I go outlet shopping and to see The Caretaker on Broadway; Gabriel and I leave at intermission. Greg and I see It Ain't Nothin' But the Blues in Philly and it is fantastic. We watch all of Sports Night and plant over a hundred fall bulbs and spend Thanksgiving in Milwaukee, where I am put through another series of quizzes by friends of Greg's who have never met me. Since he has more friends than anyone I've ever known in my entire life and I've met maybe half of them, these quizzes will endure for the rest of my life. I try to resign myself to this fact. I join a new gym. DECEMBER My class ends, and I write an excellent Jane Austen paper that breaks new ground and earns me a big fat A. We both clean our house and have our house cleaned. Greg's parents come for six days. My parents and brother come over for Christmas dinner. I shop and wrap and send out cards very late and we adopt a small family with some friends. I join Holidailies and fail miserably. I organize the tenth anniversary show choir alumni show, and announce that it will be the last time I do so (this news does not go over well). I listen to very few carols and frankly do not enjoy the holiday very much as I am planning and planning and entertaining and cleaning and cooking and wrapping and shopping and not sleeping or relaxing or having much fun. It snows. We go away for the night for New Year's and have a good time and a lot of trouble sleeping. The sleeping thing ends up being a major theme in 2003. Overall, 2003 wasn't a great year. It wasn't a terrible year, but it wasn't a great year. I was depressed. Greg and I struggled with some personal issues and finally had a breakthrough mid-December, but see above re: feeling overexposed here so sadly, no talking about that. It's the overexposed part that's troubling me the most. I have reached the final point, I think. I simply cannot deal with it any longer. I write nothing here because who knows who's reading it, despite the move to a new domain? Ex-friends? Ex-husbands? Family members? Friends of Greg's I either don't know at all or only know a little? High school classmates? Teachers? I can't think of a single person in any of those categories that I want to know everything I'm thinking and feeling, and in many cases, I don't want them to know anything I'm thinking and feeling. I can't think of a way to keep them from reading and it's ridiculous to expect that I can because hello, internet. I have friends who only keep up with me through the journal, and I'm tired of that. I don't want those kind of one-sided relationships in my life anymore. They will continue as long as this space exists. So all I can do, now, finally, really, is say goodbye. I didn't know I was going to say that until I actually wrote it, but it feels like the right thing to do. I'll be updating at the blog, I think, but that's a blog, not a journal, and one will not become the other. I'll be hanging out at TUS. And occasionally, I may say hi to the notify list, so you might not want to unsub. But other than that? I'm finally done. I've resolved to make 2004 about things that don't pressure me or stress me out, and sadly, this journal has become one of those things. I need my life to be filled with things that make me happy, and this journal doesn't make me happy and hasn't for a long time. I've done this before, so this may seem like crying wolf, but it's not. Not now. I'm ready now, and I'm finished. I'll be pulling everything at some point this week. Thanks. Good luck. Godspeed.
|