Here I go into the first full week of 2014. This is the week I said I would drag myself out of my cocoon and begin doing things, this is the week I was going to start everything fresh and take charge of my life. Have I done this? Well… I’m going to blame the sub zero temperatures on my inactivity. Too cold to think today, it was much more enjoyable to stay inside under a blanket, and wander around in world for a while.

We were looking for some ice cream… I think we took a wrong turn somewhere…

I thought myselves might like a little outing, but I think we took a wrong turn in our quest for some ice cream and ended up in a rough place. That’s exactly how 2013 felt for me, it started off full of hope and promise, and everything was going along nicely till that wrong turn in November turned the world upside down. I feel as lost and stranded as my avvies, searching for the right road to get out of this dark place I’ve fallen into.

I missed my husband a lot as I pushed his former alt around various sims today. It wasn’t just that it was difficult to coordinate working on two different computers (my laptop can’t deal with two viewers running at once) and I missed having him logged in with me to drive his own av around, it was that I missed sharing the experience with him. A couple of times when I was on my own avvie I would move around to a new spot and cam back to catch sight of his, and for just a moment I could believe he was really there with me, behind the avatar. Even though this was an alt that I designed, even though he hadn’t used this av in a few years, and had never logged in under it with this shape… it was still his, once. It still felt, just a little, like I had him there.

The new year has already brought some good things to me though. Strawberry Singh has started up her Monday Memes again! Lots of yays and happy dances here!  Of course a brand new year deserves a New Year Meme, and this new year has a lot of symbolic significance for me. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the past, missing my beautiful husband, and trying to figure out what I’m going to do next.  And so off we go on our meme today:

1. How did you spend New Year’s Eve?  This year I was at home by myself. I watched the ball drop as I scrolled around various websites, then decided the best way to ring in the new year was to watch old Godzilla movies. All in all it was an okay night, but I missed getting my new years kiss. Mostly I just miss the guy who gave me that kiss every year. 
2. Did you keep any new years’ resolutions? I didn’t make any formal resolutions, but I know I had some intentions about things I wanted to do and for the most part I didn’t follow through with anything. Related to SL, I was planning to be a bit more interactive and that never really happened. I really did enjoy getting this blog going and writing more, though. 
3. What was your biggest achievement(s) of the year? I survived the last two months of it. Honestly I didn’t think I would, and for much of that time I did not want to. There are days when I’m still not sure how I’m going to do, but just making it through those first two months was major. 
4. What was the best thing you bought? We didn’t make any major purchases last year, in fact money was tight so we didn’t really make many minor ones either, so I am going to say it was getting tickets to see Rush! I have loved their music since I was 13 and it has taken me forever and a day to finally get to a concert, so I was excited! In SL I didn’t really make any big purchases that I can recall… everything I buy is my favorite thing in that moment.
5. What do you wish you’d done more of? I am full of regrets about things left undone, but that’s a part of grieving. I do wish we’d done more active things, gotten out of the house and gone to the parks more, hiked, actually worked on our abandoned fitness goals.
6. What do you wish you’d done less of? I wish I hadn’t eaten so much junk and tossed my diet out the window. I wish I’d done a lot less procrastinating, there was far too much time spent putting everything off because I figured I had plenty of time to do it later. 
7. What was your favorite movie you watched this year? Thinking back, I think the only thing we may have seen in the theater was Star Trek Into Darkness. We weren’t big movie-goers.
8. What did you do on your birthday this year? Well, my husband died on November 1, my birthday was four days later, so I was deep in the fog period and I couldn’t tell you what I did that day. I think I was on the couch under a blanket, occasionally checking Facebook to respond to people who were sending me notes and trying to make sure I was okay. I don’t remember it. I didn’t care that it was my birthday. It’s going to be a hard thing to face in the future too, I think.
9. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned. Never, ever take anything for granted, because we really don’t know what will happen tomorrow. Enjoy each moment,  Take lots of pictures.  Don’t put things off because you think you have all the time in the world. Of course knowing that these are valuable life lessons, and actually making those lessons a part of my life are two different things. I’m still working on it.
10. What does 2014 hold for you? I don’t know, and I’m alternately absolutely terrified and cautiously optimistic. But mostly terrified. I feel like I’m not starting a new chapter in my life, I’m beginning to write an entirely new book and I don’t know what to do on the first page.

No Karamel Sutra? I guess we’ll take this vanilla, then.

My avvie’s might have found their way out of the rough neighborhood, but I’m still having trouble. I’m not getting the life I wanted this year, so I’ve no choice but to learn how to adjust and adapt, and that will require doing some planning and setting some goals.  I have things in mind that I want to work on, both personally and professionally, but I have to be cautious about how big I make my plans. I’ve learned that if I get carried away with lofty goals I’ll quickly become intimidated by them and begin putting things off. I suspect that fighting that urge to put everything off until tomorrow, or next week, is going to be one of the hardest battles I have to fight this year, and the one that I am most in need of winning.

As far as Second Life goes… I’m not sure what I’m going to plan for. I think I’m going to allow Ravensong to retire quietly to her little home and just log in as her when I need to do maintenance work or access her inventory, and I’ll shift my virtual adventures over to me#2, Rhie for short. There’s probably a whole long ramble about identity and avatar choices in there somewhere, but maybe I’ll save that for another post sometime.

Oh, who knows what I’ll do. It’s a whole new year! 😀

We’ll work on those 2014 resolutions tomorrow.

Sleep well, tired little avvies. There’s no telling what adventures are waiting for us.

Places to visit:
Sinners Heaven
SOHO New York