Today marks my first anniversary of blogging. Mind you, when I started last year, my desire was only to blog to fuel my creative side. As I got into the writing, I found it liberating to express myself in a variety of ways uncensored. (Though I find censoring myself is my biggest struggle.) This year of writing also coincided with my major transformation involving the return to being sexual after ten years of celibacy, a major job change, and losing forty pounds. I am not the same Atira Aura as I was a year ago.
Documenting my return to dating and being sexual was not something I had intended but looking back, I am glad that I did. For anyone who has been celibate any length of time, diving into sex and relationships especially when one is older, is daunting. Chronicling this process helped me to see and deal with the emotional, psychological, and physical realities of commingling again. I also hoped it helped others struggling with breaking out of sexual isolation. Over New Years I reviewed my journal from the past year. Grappling with the new technological dating process was bewildering, frustrating, and downright depressing at times. For all the communication avenues available to us at this moment in history, it seems as if less is being expressed and understood. Frequently I felt out of whack, wondering and second guessing myself. Don't get me wrong: there were a number of blissful times but they were fleeting. As for now, at least temporarily, I have returned to my spinster ways.
The forty pound weight loss was not for vanity but for health reasons. Slowly but surely I was becoming diabetic. In an effort to stave off this disease, I embarked on a three year program of profound change in diet, supplements, and exercise. Though I had been losing weight all along, it became visually evident this year. I now look like an entirely different woman. Suddenly, people in the building I work, not just in my department, starting coming up to me in the hallway telling me how wonderful I looked. When people say these sort of things, they obviously don't realize they are also telling you you didn't look okay heavier. Another curious effect of losing weight is people feeling compelled to touch me, hug me, and talk to me about my transformation. Being an introvert, I find this invasive but I have had to learn to tolerate these social interactions.
My job change, initiated at the behest of our contractor Chief, has not gone well. Because of my strategic abilities, global understanding of how our system works, and excellent solution orientation, I was appointed to this new position without the option of refusal. As with most bureaucracies, they did not listen to any of my honed strategic proposals or solutions. It does not give me any satisfaction to be right, but I can't help but think how foolish they were not to listen to me. It came back to bite them in the ass big time. The road to hell is paved with good intentions, isn't it? Just like most bureaucracies, power struggles, poor resource management, bad judgment, and no accountability fester in a crazy from the top down management. I have written about the deterioration of the workplace. My place of employment would be textbook. Retirement will not come too early for me.
What will 2015 bring? Hopefully, more creative blogs.
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