The End of An Era

I have been somewhat quiet over here on my blog lately. Part of that is because I have been so unbelievably busy trying to gain some sort of normalcy in my life again, and part of that is because emotionally things have been kind of rough for me lately. I do not want this blog to become a place where I do nothing but vent about the daily frustrations about my life, and yet, when I think in my head about blog topics to write about they all inevitably end up going down that road.

I remind myself that this blog is my public diary; a place to essentially record what is going on in my daily life. A place to come back to in later years and remember what I went through to get where I end up. And in that vain, I don't want everything to be all flowery and sugar coated. The fact is that I am in a HUGE transition in my life, and the Virgo in me abhors all things change. And the times? Yes, they are a changin'.

I have spent plenty of time on this blog talking about the ending of my relationship. I don't need to go into that further. But I will explain that the process of breaking up with someone who you have been with for a long period of time (almost 8 years in my particular case) is not a short process. Sure the decision to end things and the moving out process may only take a couple of months. But then the emotional fall out keeps going. It goes, and then you heal a little bit, and then something happens and you feel the fall again. And then you get back up and move on, and then something happens and you feel it again. It is a long process to actually emotionally rid someone from the space in your mind that you have reserved for whomever is closest to you. Even when you think you have been successful at this, sometimes things happen that bring you back to a place you thought you were clear of. I am not sure if it is The Ex's recent exploration of a new relationship, or the fact that just this last weekend she finally cleaned out a bunch of stuff of hers out of my garage, or just the fact that perhaps, FINALLY, I am ready to move on. But the end of the era has come. Don't get me wrong, I still feel it. I still feel the sadness and the let down that comes from failing at something that I tried so hard at, but for some reason it doesn't have that pull on me anymore. Not only am I genuinely happy for her new relationship, I am also genuinely happy that it isn't with me. I hope that doesn't sound horrible, but to me, it signals the fact that I might actually be ready to move on. End of a long era on that one.

The other ending is with my business. I don't talk too much about that on here for privacy sake of my clients, but now that things are done I can say this. For almost 10 years my biggest and most time consuming client has been a family that owns several properties. I manage the finances for all of their properties. About a year and a half ago one of the owners decided he wanted out. So beginning last May, all of the properties were put on the market. Yesterday escrow closed on the last remaining property. The process of selling these properties has had a HUGE part in the level of stress my work life has taken on recently. Obviously with the knowledge that all the properties were going to be sold comes the realization that I would be losing my biggest client. Therefore I needed to take on new clients to make up for the loss of this one. So take on new clients I did. But...it took a REALLY long time for all the properties to go away. So for the last several months I have been trying to give the new clients the attention they deserve, while also trying to close up shop on my old client. We have been in and out of escrow several times on all of the properties and the amount of extra work that comes with having to provide real estate agents and escrow officers with extra financials has taken its toll. I am exhausted, and stretched beyond what my little body is capable of doing. Every single day I work my usual work schedule and then when The Boy goes to bed at night I am back at my computer for at least 2 hours trying to play catch up. Before all this started, when The Boy would take a nap on the weekends I would either nap as well, or else just relax and catch up on some TV, but that has all ceased. Everything in my world is somehow about making sure not to drop the ball on any of my clients. And a couple of times the ball did get dropped. And I have a hard time living with that. I am as anal retentive as they come and in the 11 years of being a self employed bookkeeper I can honestly say that I have never made a mistake that cost anyone more than $100 for anything. I pride myself on my record. In the month of January alone I made two mistakes. And one of those is costing me over $600 out of my own pocket (because if I screw up, I take responsibility for it). This kills me. And truly, over the past two months, my work situation as whole has tried to kill me.

But with the closing of this final escrow I am seeing a light at the end of the tunnel. For the first time, I am not so bogged down in how the hell to manage everything that I am actually seeing that, wow, in a couple of months I will no longer be working for these people. Like I said, this client has been the staple in my financial life for over 10 years. I will be fine financially because of my new prospects and new clients, but wow. It will take up until I leave on maternity leave to close up shop on this final property and get everything settled to move on. But when I leave in the middle of April (please let me make it that far, please let me make it that far...) I will not be returning to the work life I have known. The end of an era indeed.

And finally (if you have continued to read this long you deserve a metal...) it is the end of the time between just The Boy and myself. We are a team my little dude and I. We have been through SO MUCH in the past three years together. Now I won't get all weepy on you (well I might, but you can't see it!) and say that it is over because I know that it isn't. But we are adding someone else into the mix. I truly believe that this little girl is going to enhance our lives in ways that we can't even imagine yet. I simply cannot wait to see what an amazing big brother he is going to be. And I can't wait to see how she changes our lives for the better. But the fact remains that our time, just the two of us, Mommy and Boy against the world, is coming to a close. We are going from two to three. And I can't really even wrap my mind around how fantastic that really is.

All of these things that are changing are good. I am ready for all of these "era's" to be done. I am ready to see what this next phase of my life holds. I have hope and I have dreams and I have wishes for all of us. I am ready to see who the next person in my life is going to be and what she's going to bring to all of our lives. I am ready for the next phase in my career to get started. And most of all, I am ready to meet this precious little girl who is going to change our lives in ways that I can't even imagine yet. Sure this process has been hard, and the past couple of months have been really rough, but what is coming is bound to be so great. It will be what I make it to be. And I am going to make it spectacular.