To say I was reeling from the first three events of 2013 is an understatement. But, because I am who I am, instead of sulking, I was going to take action. And that is exactly what happened. Surprisingly, Kevin took some actions of his own.
I had a little more than a month to go before my official last day of work. I learned I was going to get 26 weeks of severance and I would keep my insurance for 26 weeks as well.
My last official day of work was April 5th, the following Monday I started my Graduate degree in Training and Performance Improvement. About this same time, a friend of ours introduced us to an organization that does retreats. These retreats work on emotional intelligence, personal development and any other thing that is plaguing your life.
Kevin went to the first two and his transformation was pretty amazing. He seemed much happier and when we were sitting down with the counselor Kevin said that he didn’t want a divorce, he wanted to work on or marriage and the final thing that blew me away was that he said he wanted to start going to church.
Kevin started attending church with me and we were doing more things together and he was much nicer to me. In June I went to the first retreat. It was interesting. It gave me plenty to think about. The second one I went to in September. This one was much more impactful to me. It brought out things that I either didn’t realize about myself or avoided because I didn’t want to deal with it.
Both of us gained a lot of personal insight from these retreats we participated in. At the time we both came back, happier and more aware of ourselves and how we were with each other and more importantly how we were treating each other. These revelations for me have been a very central part of my life and things I work on daily. They have helped me to feel empowered and take control of my life.
2013 was the hardest and the most amazing year for me. Although there was a lot of loss to deal with, there was a lot of hope that was regained. I was happy again. We were happy again. 2013 would only be the beginning of more changes to come.