Tomboy Debutante Year In Review

In the Year of 40, your favorite Tomboy Debutante (me, you twits) has had a Banging Year!  Cleansing and Burning.

The Year of 40 saw many highlights, including Big 4-0 celebrations in Las Vegas, seaside Easter with Otter and my favorites little pirates (the youngest of which was taught the Ten Commandments drinking game)*, Derby Day funeral hat awesomeness, too many beach trips to even count (why don’t we just move there for Fuckssake?) birthday bashes with million dollar confections, nautical nuptials with naughty bits on life size Jenga pieces, Disney World, Sea World, fishing for red drum, swimming with manatees, ATL (watching my boy Carroll from afar on the Seahawks sideline) mayhem, impromptu pub crawls, Black Friday seaside shenanigans, and Oh! The Christmas Cocktails (just today I am probably sober enough to drive again).

Did someone saying Burning Bush?

I have had a tremendous year, full of drinking and living and writing, but not (alas) sharing on the blog-o-sphere.  One reason, as my editor and Merlot supplier will tell you, is Because She Said So.  Many a drunken, often pool-side, debate, has included this very topic.  Another reason is the big picture of writing projects, including research for a screenplay, a series of short stories, and the BOOK.** It was a constant debate this year. What to put in, what to leave out, what to move, what to edit, what to burn…

Indeed, I cleansed and burned A LOT this year.

I cleansed. 

I cleaned out closets, sold shit on eBay. Cleaned the mudroom, the shed, the attic, and even donated some shoes.  GASP.

In the spring, I saw a dentist, a cardiologist, a nutritionist, my gyno, two oncologists, and an orthopedic guy.  I still have perfect teeth, trace amounts of cartilage in my bad knee (that’s good) some new dietary restrictions, and the heart and lungs of a 27 year old.  So I replaced mani-pedis with facials all summer in order to make my face match.  (Jury still out on that one.)

I don’t look my age.  Mainly because I was chemically pickled in my 20’s.
And self-marinated in a variety of vintages in my 30’s. 

I also burned.

I burned bills in the fireplace.  I scorched some hair lighting a cigar on the beach. I burned some bad writing.  Most cathartic.  (Until Otter decided that the ash & 3-day old burnt logs in the fire-pit were fun fun fun to chew.  #Dog Baths)

The face of a dog with no regrets.

But most importantly I burned bridges to toxic relationships.

Done. Good Riddance.

Others (because some bridges can’t be burned, only charred) I found I simply needed to “opt out” of their company in order to remove the temptation of calling people hypocrites, liars, egocentric bastards, manipulative bitches, and murderers in public places.  And in the end?  I was amazed at how SIMPLE and CLARIFYING this was.

And writing about it has helped, of course.  Since leaving the mountains, I had begun to feel a particular bitterness creeping over me. And after three years of build up, I knew that the writing must begin anew.  I cannot, will not, let Bitter turn me into those things I so despise in others.

Bitterness can ruin you.  It’s like swallowing poison and then waiting for the other person to die.  Joanna Weaver said this, not me. She’s a Christian author I would never read, mainly because her book titles are stupid shit like Having A Mary Heart in a Martha World.  But I like this quote because I think it’s true.

Just like I can’t abide people who are life-long riders of the Woe-Is-Me-Train (#allaboardtoSelfPityville) I have to avoid bitches who Bleed Bitter not just because I want to stab them in the eye out of frustration, because it can be infectious.***  Hurricane tried her mightiest to infect me with her Bitter.  Hashing and rehashing the past as though if she complained about it enough, something might change.  Really?  What about that makes any damn sense?

There are only two things in this world.  Things you can control, and things you can’t.

Grousing about what (or who) you can’t control makes you bitter, and I will not do it.   It’s not easy.  Watching those you love get hurt because of the selfishness and deceit of others can make you lose sleep, true.  It might mean you are a good soul, in fact.  But if you can’t do anything about it, let it go.  It can be so hard, but I have devoted months to doing it, and my blood pressure is 100/75.  Bitches.

Much of what I wrote this year remains stashed away for later revision, but I’m glad I did the work, had the hard conversations, confronted my own truths.  My one and only 2014 resolution?  To keep focusing on what matters. And cleansing and burning what doesn’t.

I like this path.  It’s mine to travel and it’s pretty damn fabulous.

Happy New Year, Bitches!

XOXO
TomboyDeb

* If you do not know this game, you and I cannot be friends.  It involves watching the epic film The Ten Commandments and drinking every time someone says Moses. You must also finish your drink when Pharoah says “So let it be written, so let it be done”.  Most folks need intermission to take a short nap.

** All of which, in addition, also has to be balanced with what will and will not get me fired. Because this bitch needs her day job.

*** ”Bitterness is like a cancer. It eats upon the host.  But anger is like fire.  It burns it all clean.”
– Maya Angelou