a year in the life

I'm feeling reflective tonight.

A year ago at this time, I was faced with some distressing/depressing/heartbreaking/annoying news that made me sit down and take an honest look at myself and the way I was hiding from my life.

I did a lot of thinking and working on my inner self. In April I took a trip to a city I never get sick of: London, which was great. Then my friend died, and that was really awful. After her death, when the shock of it all wore off, I stepped back once again to evaluate things. Quit all the humiliating online dating. Joined a gym and hired a trainer. Began to put myself first and stopped worrying about what might or might not happen. Stripped away all the stupid fakeness and fear that held me back.

I began to plan solo trips and classes I wanted to take, made lists and started to form a picture of how I wanted the next decade of my life to take shape. I geared up for a summer where both my brothers got married within two months of each other, leaving me the sole single person in the family, and I made peace with that. By July, while driving 11 hours home from New Jersey after a fun visit with Laura and her family, I felt calm, free, confident, and balanced. I was single and completely okay with that, peaceful to the nooks and crannies of my inner Lisa. It's the first time in my life I could ever honestly say that.

And then two days later I met Paul.

Coworkers had set us up, and we had been emailing each other for three weeks or so. We met in person on July 9th at East Side Mario's in Livonia. Now, I am the queen of blind dates. I've tried it all - matchmaking, online dating, speed dating, every depressing and frustrating tool that was out there for singles. Unlike the commercials, I never met anyone to skip joyfully down a beach with. The 29 dimensions of compatibility matched me with men who collected buttons, believed the Great Lakes were man-made, wanted to move to Asia because they hated America, or, worst of all, were BORING. On the way out the door, on that warm summer evening where I just wanted to stay home and read under the walnut tree, I told Sophie and Sadie, "well, here goes another waste of an evening."

Except it wasn't. It SO wasn't. And we've been inseparable ever since.

I've been a bit silent on my blog, not really talking about things like I've done in the past. I thought that once I met someone, I'd be spilling all sorts of long, excited blogs, boring people with my nauseating joy. Instead, the opposite happened. I took private time to open up to and cultivate this new HEALTHY relationship. I needed that time away. But now I'm back, and here are a few fun facts: Paul is caring, hardworking, supportive, selfless, giving, and funny. We share a love of microbreweries, food, the outdoors, snow, family, socializing, and campfires. He's everything I've been looking for, and I hope he's in my life for a very long time.

But this isn't an entry about Paul. It's about me. I am proud of myself, of how I handled this year of ups and downs. This will go down in Lisa History as a hugely pivotal year, one which hasn't happened since 1991. I'm proud of all the work I put in, both mentally and physically. I am grateful that finally, FINALLY, the one thing that's been eluding me for so long is now really here. It really is! And tonight, as I sit here coughing up a lung with whooping cough, which I've had for five weeks now, I am truly happy. I haven't been this happy in a long time.

Who'd've thunk it?