2012 -- In Review
2012 turned out to be a helluva year, in a crazy good way.
2011 was just a mass of crazy, owing mostly to my split-up of my then-husband, Tim, and dealing with all the fallout that came with it. Going into New Year’s 2012 I was still reeling from that, and addressing a good deal of grief and anger over the whole situation, as well as spikes in depression and outright rage. If you told me I’d be going into New Years 2013 in the way that I have, well... I’d have called you insane.
First off, in early Winter of 2012, I’d started to risqué-talk/flirt with Sairo, a friend of mine’s partner. A chance comment had opened a flood-gate, and we’d discovered we had a lot more in common than we thought. However, due to a larger than usual age gap, paired with us both being in relationship (albeit open ones) I never counted on it going very far, and counted it as fairly innocent.
This would prove to be wrong, as Sairo approached me for a more intimate relationship. He had already become something akin to my best friend, and I was interested, so after checking with our partners we proceeded. Shortly after, we paired up to be gym buddies, an activity that would bring me into his life several days a week. One thing lead to another, and the more time we spent together, the more we liked each other, and this lead to feelings.
(As an aside, our gym buddy routine resulted in me losing 25lbs from Feb to May.)
Feelings were OK, but not a relationship. I set up to work on this level, and I was set to be content to be Best Friend. However, off comments by Sairo set off alarm bells, and over time it became apparent that life with his current partner wasn’t what it appeared to the outside. What I perceived as a healthy, happy relationship - wasn’t.
In the meantime, my divorce finalized with Tim, but not without a few bumps. I was now, officially, single again. At least, for tax purposes.
Time passed, Sairo’s partner suddenly flipped out, and banned us. Now, we were told we could still be friends (which I could have dealt with), but we weren’t allowed to talk or see each other in reality. After a month of limited communication, and a lot of soul searching, Sairo left his partner and moved in with me and Siam. May was an extremely unhappy month for us.
Truthfully, this saved us. I make just enough to cover our bills, but anything extra ate into our savings. Siam was still unemployed. Sairo moving in and taking up 1/3 of the bills let us stabilize and even start to recover.
Time passes, and Sairo and I find the way we fit together, and how deep this is going to go. There’s some pain points, mostly regarding not wanting to upset one another with what we want, but in the end things come together pretty well. He seems to work well as a roomie. Siam and he seem to mostly get along.
Also over the summer, I moved forward with an idea I had been thinking over since breaking up with Tim and the trashing of several years of plans: sterilization. After more than a few bumps, it was accomplished, and I was able to indulge in intimacy with my partners with only the worry of disease, rather than the potentially-fatal pregnancy. It was, and is... liberating. The lack of worry was truly profound. I’d heard about this mental relief from female friends who had undergone sterilization, but experiencing it is AMAZING. I mean, even when on the pill/other medical methods, there’s always a little voice going, ‘What if it fails this time?’ Intimacy when you know 100% that there’s no chance of pregnancy is just... wow. Free. Relaxed.
If you’re done having kids, get it done. It’s incredible.
Time moves on. Sairo and I go to Memphis, to MFM, for Labor Day. Siam and I go to Oklacon in October. November is Thanksgiving, something that I enjoy but is also painful - Sairo hasn’t admitted we’re a thing to his parents, as he made the mistake of introducing Siam and I as a couple to them. As a result, I can’t go with him to family events, such as Thanksgiving. This is painful, after a fashion. I’ve never been the secret girlfriend before.
Around Thanksgiving, Siam finally gets a job. This is amazing, and heralds the return of the family to a more stable time. We have a lot of debt to work off, but with his job we should be able to finally reverse it, instead of just holding it at bay.
My sister and her family moved to Virginia over the summer, to the same place as my Dad. For Christmas, EVERYONE was getting together for the first time. I badly wanted to go, but after car repairs to make Siam’s commuter car reliable for his new job, our savings and credit lines were tapped out. I didn’t know if I could afford to go, and Siam couldn’t because of training. Then, Sairo offered his Christmas money from his parents as an emergency fund, and that was enough to make it a sure thing.
So, Sairo and I drove to VA for Christmas. We arrived the 23rd, late. The next day, Christmas Eve, it started snowing. We managed to go out for a couple errands, but getting up my dad’s steep driveway proved fairly treacherous. We eventually managed, and left the car there.
While it melted all day on Christmas, overnight to the 26th it snowed again, but more heavily. This nixed our plans to go sight-seeing with Dad, and instead everyone stayed in and cozy.
On the 27th, I woke up feeling tired and ‘off’. My blood sugar was super high, so I took my meds and ate low-carb to bring it down. After risking driving out that day to visit my sister, and going to dinner with her and my Mom, I came down with a high (103.6F) fever. We were also unable to get our car up Dad’s driveway, so in the end we got dropped off and left my car at my sister’s. I went right to bed.
The next day, Friday, I woke up still with a high fever. I could knock it down with a combination of aspirin and Tylenol, but neither did it on their own. The odd thing was, I wasn’t congested or feeling sick, just a high fever and woozy. My throat was a bit sore, but my nose clear. But, I woke up still really groggy and dizzy, and all in all this killed our plans to go to D.C. and sight-see. However, at this point we were due to leave Sunday morning, and another snowstorm was looming overnight. With me dizzy, it looked like Sairo would be driving us back, and he has no experience driving in snow.
So, after looking at the weather, my health, etc, we decided to leave on Friday ASAP. We threw everything in the car, and drove to try and beat the snowstorm. We manage to get past the freezeline and into just rain by the time we stopped that night.
We crash at a hotel, sleep, then resume driving. I start out the day feeling better, but I rapidly start to see-saw up and down as the fever spikes and breaks. My throat is now on fire, and it’s hard to swallow. It’s now Saturday. Siam calls when we’re mostly to Dallas, upset, because the other car won’t go into gear. Due to being in training, he can’t miss any days. However, due to snow and being sick, we’ll be back in Dallas 2 days early with the other car.
We get to Dallas late Saturday evening, and get me inside. I sleep alone, Siam in the living room, and Sairo in his own bead because we still don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Sunday morning, the fever is still raging, and it’s getting increasing hard to swallow. I ask Sairo to confirm a suspicion, and look at my throat. Strep. His old partner got it constantly, so he’s more than familiar with what it looks like. So, we go to CareNow and get me antibiotics.
I was well enough to go to a New Year’s party the next evening, and it’s been getting better since.
As an end-of-year action, I applied for a debt consolidation loan via Prosper.com, which is kind of like Kickstarter, but for lending. It’s crowd-sourced, where individual lenders can opt in to invest in you. I got offered a rate that was significantly less than my credit cards. So, I got the funding, paid off all my cards, and in doing so my debt is sewn up into one payment instead of scattered over multiple cards with multiple due dates, and all of my credit lines are now available for emergencies (like car repairs and vet visits). Having my emergency fund back again makes me much, much more relaxed.
So, where 2010 and 2011 were the years of personal disaster (in regards to relationship and Siam’s employment, and debt), 2012 was MUCH more positive. A new relationship, a new job, finances on the mend. I got to see my family, all together, all at once, for the first time. They seem to like Sairo, he seems amused by them.
However, if you told me on NYE 2012 that I’d be entering 2013 living with Sairo, deeply in love with him, with him having parted ways with his partner, I’d have looked at you like you were insane.
So, my goals for 2013:
1. Be healthy. Go back to the gym. Keep getting a good A1C reading. Keep losing weight, and leave 2013 lighter/smaller size than when I went in. Keep trending better, in other words.
2. Pay off debt, on all of our parts.
3. Save for house, rent or own.
4. Start shopping for a house somewhere around next Nov/Dec (12 months after Siam started his new job).
5. Be supportive of Sairo finishing his degree.
2011 was just a mass of crazy, owing mostly to my split-up of my then-husband, Tim, and dealing with all the fallout that came with it. Going into New Year’s 2012 I was still reeling from that, and addressing a good deal of grief and anger over the whole situation, as well as spikes in depression and outright rage. If you told me I’d be going into New Years 2013 in the way that I have, well... I’d have called you insane.
First off, in early Winter of 2012, I’d started to risqué-talk/flirt with Sairo, a friend of mine’s partner. A chance comment had opened a flood-gate, and we’d discovered we had a lot more in common than we thought. However, due to a larger than usual age gap, paired with us both being in relationship (albeit open ones) I never counted on it going very far, and counted it as fairly innocent.
This would prove to be wrong, as Sairo approached me for a more intimate relationship. He had already become something akin to my best friend, and I was interested, so after checking with our partners we proceeded. Shortly after, we paired up to be gym buddies, an activity that would bring me into his life several days a week. One thing lead to another, and the more time we spent together, the more we liked each other, and this lead to feelings.
(As an aside, our gym buddy routine resulted in me losing 25lbs from Feb to May.)
Feelings were OK, but not a relationship. I set up to work on this level, and I was set to be content to be Best Friend. However, off comments by Sairo set off alarm bells, and over time it became apparent that life with his current partner wasn’t what it appeared to the outside. What I perceived as a healthy, happy relationship - wasn’t.
In the meantime, my divorce finalized with Tim, but not without a few bumps. I was now, officially, single again. At least, for tax purposes.
Time passed, Sairo’s partner suddenly flipped out, and banned us. Now, we were told we could still be friends (which I could have dealt with), but we weren’t allowed to talk or see each other in reality. After a month of limited communication, and a lot of soul searching, Sairo left his partner and moved in with me and Siam. May was an extremely unhappy month for us.
Truthfully, this saved us. I make just enough to cover our bills, but anything extra ate into our savings. Siam was still unemployed. Sairo moving in and taking up 1/3 of the bills let us stabilize and even start to recover.
Time passes, and Sairo and I find the way we fit together, and how deep this is going to go. There’s some pain points, mostly regarding not wanting to upset one another with what we want, but in the end things come together pretty well. He seems to work well as a roomie. Siam and he seem to mostly get along.
Also over the summer, I moved forward with an idea I had been thinking over since breaking up with Tim and the trashing of several years of plans: sterilization. After more than a few bumps, it was accomplished, and I was able to indulge in intimacy with my partners with only the worry of disease, rather than the potentially-fatal pregnancy. It was, and is... liberating. The lack of worry was truly profound. I’d heard about this mental relief from female friends who had undergone sterilization, but experiencing it is AMAZING. I mean, even when on the pill/other medical methods, there’s always a little voice going, ‘What if it fails this time?’ Intimacy when you know 100% that there’s no chance of pregnancy is just... wow. Free. Relaxed.
If you’re done having kids, get it done. It’s incredible.
Time moves on. Sairo and I go to Memphis, to MFM, for Labor Day. Siam and I go to Oklacon in October. November is Thanksgiving, something that I enjoy but is also painful - Sairo hasn’t admitted we’re a thing to his parents, as he made the mistake of introducing Siam and I as a couple to them. As a result, I can’t go with him to family events, such as Thanksgiving. This is painful, after a fashion. I’ve never been the secret girlfriend before.
Around Thanksgiving, Siam finally gets a job. This is amazing, and heralds the return of the family to a more stable time. We have a lot of debt to work off, but with his job we should be able to finally reverse it, instead of just holding it at bay.
My sister and her family moved to Virginia over the summer, to the same place as my Dad. For Christmas, EVERYONE was getting together for the first time. I badly wanted to go, but after car repairs to make Siam’s commuter car reliable for his new job, our savings and credit lines were tapped out. I didn’t know if I could afford to go, and Siam couldn’t because of training. Then, Sairo offered his Christmas money from his parents as an emergency fund, and that was enough to make it a sure thing.
So, Sairo and I drove to VA for Christmas. We arrived the 23rd, late. The next day, Christmas Eve, it started snowing. We managed to go out for a couple errands, but getting up my dad’s steep driveway proved fairly treacherous. We eventually managed, and left the car there.
While it melted all day on Christmas, overnight to the 26th it snowed again, but more heavily. This nixed our plans to go sight-seeing with Dad, and instead everyone stayed in and cozy.
On the 27th, I woke up feeling tired and ‘off’. My blood sugar was super high, so I took my meds and ate low-carb to bring it down. After risking driving out that day to visit my sister, and going to dinner with her and my Mom, I came down with a high (103.6F) fever. We were also unable to get our car up Dad’s driveway, so in the end we got dropped off and left my car at my sister’s. I went right to bed.
The next day, Friday, I woke up still with a high fever. I could knock it down with a combination of aspirin and Tylenol, but neither did it on their own. The odd thing was, I wasn’t congested or feeling sick, just a high fever and woozy. My throat was a bit sore, but my nose clear. But, I woke up still really groggy and dizzy, and all in all this killed our plans to go to D.C. and sight-see. However, at this point we were due to leave Sunday morning, and another snowstorm was looming overnight. With me dizzy, it looked like Sairo would be driving us back, and he has no experience driving in snow.
So, after looking at the weather, my health, etc, we decided to leave on Friday ASAP. We threw everything in the car, and drove to try and beat the snowstorm. We manage to get past the freezeline and into just rain by the time we stopped that night.
We crash at a hotel, sleep, then resume driving. I start out the day feeling better, but I rapidly start to see-saw up and down as the fever spikes and breaks. My throat is now on fire, and it’s hard to swallow. It’s now Saturday. Siam calls when we’re mostly to Dallas, upset, because the other car won’t go into gear. Due to being in training, he can’t miss any days. However, due to snow and being sick, we’ll be back in Dallas 2 days early with the other car.
We get to Dallas late Saturday evening, and get me inside. I sleep alone, Siam in the living room, and Sairo in his own bead because we still don’t know what’s wrong with me.
Sunday morning, the fever is still raging, and it’s getting increasing hard to swallow. I ask Sairo to confirm a suspicion, and look at my throat. Strep. His old partner got it constantly, so he’s more than familiar with what it looks like. So, we go to CareNow and get me antibiotics.
I was well enough to go to a New Year’s party the next evening, and it’s been getting better since.
As an end-of-year action, I applied for a debt consolidation loan via Prosper.com, which is kind of like Kickstarter, but for lending. It’s crowd-sourced, where individual lenders can opt in to invest in you. I got offered a rate that was significantly less than my credit cards. So, I got the funding, paid off all my cards, and in doing so my debt is sewn up into one payment instead of scattered over multiple cards with multiple due dates, and all of my credit lines are now available for emergencies (like car repairs and vet visits). Having my emergency fund back again makes me much, much more relaxed.
So, where 2010 and 2011 were the years of personal disaster (in regards to relationship and Siam’s employment, and debt), 2012 was MUCH more positive. A new relationship, a new job, finances on the mend. I got to see my family, all together, all at once, for the first time. They seem to like Sairo, he seems amused by them.
However, if you told me on NYE 2012 that I’d be entering 2013 living with Sairo, deeply in love with him, with him having parted ways with his partner, I’d have looked at you like you were insane.
So, my goals for 2013:
1. Be healthy. Go back to the gym. Keep getting a good A1C reading. Keep losing weight, and leave 2013 lighter/smaller size than when I went in. Keep trending better, in other words.
2. Pay off debt, on all of our parts.
3. Save for house, rent or own.
4. Start shopping for a house somewhere around next Nov/Dec (12 months after Siam started his new job).
5. Be supportive of Sairo finishing his degree.