mme_hardy | 2015: year in review

Quoting Doonesbury in 1979 (when all the world and I were young) "To an armpit of a year!" (For Doonesbury, it was "decade"; he had no idea of the horrors yet to come.)

As you could tell by my reduced posting rate, things didn't go well by me. The migraines were bad and my husband was so miserable at work he nearly walked out the door without having a job to walk into.

Great things that happened, though:

My son excelled in community college; he discovered a fierce love for college-level history and bonded with the chair of the department, who recommended which courses my son take for winter. He has gone from severe anxiety and "I'm just taking this for personal enrichment" to thinking about which college he'd like to transfer to after the two-year degree. My emotions are not just "intellectual mom wants kid to go to college", although I fear that's obvious -- it's that my son is no longer placing limits on himself on the assumption that he can never succeed.
My daughter continued to blossom. This fall, when applying to graduate school in social science, she wasn't crippled by anxiety. Instead, she set herself time goals and easily hit the first two deadlines (the second two applications are due in January). She also convinced herself she wasn't unworthy of UC Berkeley and applied there. At her request, I gave edits for her essays; they're superb. You never know what will happen, especially given the state education cut-backs, but I think she did a good job of presenting herself.
The children started cooking supper one night a week; both of them are growing in confidence and skill. This is good both for their long-time lives and for my husband, who gets a day off.
I started taking a new medication, indomethacin, in June or so. I now often have 3-4 day stretches without a migraine; this is spectacular.
I started writing again. Extrapolating from Yuletide, I decided that outside deadlines did a lot to motivate me. As a result, I completed 3 works, rather than just one for Yuletide. I also started a WIP that I'm happy with, and I hope to move it forward in 2016 even without deadline pressure.
(YAY YAY YAY) My husband got recruited, as in a company contacted him directly. Within 3 weeks, he had a job offer. He will start work in the new year. Fingers crossed.

I have hopes for 2016. That's a nice feeling.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

thistleingrey

Yay, and best to you for 2016.

Edited Date: 2016-01-01 06:30 am (UTC)

legionseagle

Best wishes for 2016 and glad to hear about the new medication.

askerian

i'm so happy to hear all this. ^________________^

castiron

I hope your 2016 will have more of the great things and less of the suck.

movingfinger

I think it was "To a kidney stone of a decade!" ---not quite there yet, but we could yet achieve it.

It's good to hear that the migraines can be shoved back to give you some space to work in.

edenfalling

Here's hoping for more of the good and less of the bad in 2016!

loligo

I'm thrilled to hear your son is liking college! I'm happy for you and him, and it also gives me hope for my own anxious kid.

mme_hardy

What made a big difference -- and this was his idea, not mine -- was to take one class for 'personal enrichment', not worrying about requirements or majors or talking to a counselor. He picked a class that he wanted to take and just took it. That removed the pressure of "must get high grades", "this is necessary for my major", "must get counseling on how to complete degree". He enjoyed his art history class a great deal.