YIR!!!!!!
Better known as the Year In Review.
Wow, what a difference a year makes. 2006, I can really claim, was the best year ever for me. Granted, it had it's share of tragedy (one that I'm not truly over yet, and may never completely heal from), but for the most part it's been a good year, and one which I feel shall always stand out in my memory as the one where I won.
January: I was still coming down hard from the events of late 2005, living with Michael. I'd been shunted back to the front end of Walmart Morehead, and was being constantly confronted with the terrible twosome. I was miserable, but dealing with things all right.
February: Michael proved himself to be a man of caring and even thoughtfullness with a gift for me for Valentine's Day, a day which I had expected to be filled with tears and sadness. Michael cemented himself as my best male friend that day, and not just because he let me in his life. He wasn't just using me to keep his house clean and care for him. He honestly cared for me.
April: Simutaneously a good and bad month. I hit rock bottom that month, but I also moved out of Mike's and started a new life with Glenn and Ali. If only we knew where our year would lead us then...
Also in April came my triumphant return to the best department in Walmart, the TLE, where I assumed my place beside the others in the department and began working in close contact daily with my favorite manager type person ever, Curtis Hutchings.
May: The online publication of some of my short stories, and the beginning of my major weight loss! I've shed 100 pounds this year, bringing me to a total of 210 on a bad day now. Yay me!
June: The decision to leave Morehead and everything I've known for the last few years becomes final and official with Ali's acceptance to ECU.
Also in June, a major achievement in the life of me: my first live PPV experience! Went to Vengence with a group from Walmart, and had the greatest time of my life. I wanna do it again!
July: Weight loss continues, and the move creeps up on us. I think it was this month that we found our home and started packing boxes. It comes down from corporate Walmart that GREAT MANAGER GUY CURTIS' job would be eliminated, and he moves up in the foodchain and away from me. His last act there was to approve my vacation time and help push my own transfer through... to Greenville. Amazingly enough, Greenville would be his home store too, and so I'd have one familiar face in a completely unfamiliar land. My clothing no longer fits, and I get nearly and entirely new wardrobe of skirts, shirts, pants, shoes, and a general feeling of confidence in myself arrises.
August: We moved! I settled into my new TLE fairly easily (read: I took it over), and was glad to see Curtis when he finally showed up during the last week. It took almost all month for me to learn all the new technicians and department co-workers, but soon it was just like home. WalMart Greenville became my new home. I bought a new car.
September: Nothing too monumental here. My confidence continued to rise, and I helped get the department ship shape for inventory. Compliments rained down like... rain. My interpersonal relationships grew and our little family here grew more tightknit.
October: Tragedy beigns. My grandfather fell ill and we had to commit him to a nursing home for a while. There he caught pnuemonia and had to be admitted to the hospital.
November: Tragedy strikes expectedly: My grandfather passed from us on November 16th, and we laid him to his eternal rest on November 20th. It was the saddest time I have ever known, and my throat still closes and chokes as I think about it now.
December: Reconnecting with an old friend, and making new ones constantly has made December a memorable part of the BEST YEAR EVER!
I can honestly say to you, dear readers, that for the fist time in my life, I look in the mirror and see someone I'm glad to look at staring back at me. The fat girl who was sad and awkward is gone, and in her place, is me- finally a confident young woman satisfied with her life and her work, and going places. For once in my life, I have the ability to say and do things that I never thought I would before, and this momentum shall contunue forward into 2007 and well beyond.
2007 WILL be my year. I promise it.