A Few Major Victories

Sorry this post is coming in so extremely late that we're already almost four hours into the following day.  It's been a bit of a long evening, which relates to the second victory.

Victory: This teddy bear!

I finished it!  Yesterday, in fact.  As you can see, M is delighted.  She has a purple stuffed heart among her stuffing (it's just barely visible from the right angles and in the right light, but it's definitely obvious to the touch), and red features.  She has no name yet, but I'm sure one will be determined soon.  I'm really pleased with her.  I did not expect the camouflage yarn to turn out that awesome.


Victory: Tonight, Ian and I really talked about last year.

Last year was a really crappy year for us, separately and together.  My grandfather died.  He suffered a medical emergency and has spent almost a year trying to recover.  A promised trip never happened, derailing my entire summer.  I felt neglected.  In fact, I almost called it quits several times last year.  We never really talked about all of this, even as things started drastically improving in the last month.  (Winter break really did a good thing for us, reminding us both of why we're doing this and how good we are together.)

We talked for over four hours tonight, and a lot of the last hour was about last year.  How I had felt; what had been going on with him.  It was really cathartic to talk about some of that, although we really do still have a lot of ground to cover.  I expect it'll be a big source of conversation for a few months yet, as we continue to sort through all of what happened and figure out what we can take away from it.  We're in a much better place now, and I think after tonight we both understand each other's mindset a little more.

I don't think he'd realized just how neglected and hurt and even angry at times, I've felt.  I for sure hadn't realized exactly what he'd been facing.  It was easier for both of us just to keep moving on like it hadn't happened/wasn't happening.  It's definitely time to get some work done in that area though, and tonight was a significant victory on that front.