2007 is broken down into two parts for me: before July 9 and after July 9. What's so important about July 9? Well, let me explain…

Part One: January 1 – July 8

As always, January was nothing but one drunken blur. First there is New Year's, then Kimmy's birthday. Staying sober is not an option!

New Year's Eve was wild, thanks to Adam. Who is Adam you ask? The journal entry I wrote about New Year's Eve 2006 can be found here and here in case you wanted the entire back story – and that's not even the entire back story!! I could have written 10 more pages about that whole situation. It really stretches all the way to 2003, but who has time for all of that?

New Year's Day itself was sort of a disappointment. It rained and the parade was canceled until the following Saturday. Bummer.

Saturday, January 6, was the day of the actual Mummer's parade and it was an event like it always is. Delaware Danielle and Katie came to Philly for the first time ever for the parade and we drunkenly frolicked up and down 2nd Street all night and into the morning. It was also the fourth time in my life I have taken E and it was probably the best E of my life as I was feeling the after effects of it for that entire week. I remember painting at one job and as I was rolling the walls the most amazing sensation vibrated up and down my arms because of the E after effects. It was fantastic!

January was also the month where I realized my time at Sister's Painting was coming to a close. More and more, every day I went there, it became apparent to me that I had to leave. I was just so scared to make a move – no income! What would I do?

It also happened in January, I realized how much I wanted to get my Master's Degree. I had wanted to go to grad school for so long and I had to get over the rejections that I received the previous years and apply to new, different schools that I thought would accept me and would actually offer me something in return.

Come February, I sent away my applications and quit Sisters Painting. That stupid job didn't matter to me anymore. I quit after Bobbi Ann demanded that I pay her thousands of dollars in tax money that she told me when I was hired that I would never have to pay. That bitch can suck it and I told her that when I quit. Although, I did give her two weeks to figure out who she was going to hire to replacement, which I thought was pretty damn nice of me.

My journal entries with the back story with Bobbi Ann can be found here and here.

I quit my job at Sisters Painting in mid-February and moved my attention to working with Sharon and making her new business, Integrating Bodyworks, a complete success!

For months, from February until the Open House in April, I worked with Sharon for countless hours making everything perfect for her big opening. And her Open House was a total dream – seeing something that I had worked so hard on come to fruition was so sweet and wonderful. The problem with working for Sharon is that Sharon did not have a lot of money because so much of her income was being poured into the business. This left me with a very little paycheck (I'm talking like $200 a month) that did not cover my basic bills and left me pulling money from my savings account just to survive, which scared the holy crap out of me.

After the opening of Integrating Bodyworks, my pay did not increase much at all and I fell into a very deep depression. Nothing in my life was going the way I had planned. Grad school seemed like it was never going to happen for me, I was making no money at all and didn't even have enough to pay my bills, my friends – ah, my friends. Where to start?

After I quit my job at Sisters I was elated, yet terrified. The prospect of not having any income was insanely scary and I had no idea what my next move was going to be. I remember the weekend after I quit my job at the painting company we all went out and celebrated. But then what? What comes after the celebration, the independence of letting go of an abusive, horrible situation? That was the question I had to keep coming back to and I really expected my core group of friends to be there to help me cope with needing to come up with an answer.

They weren't. Not at all.

This is where I struggle with how overly sensitive I am. I understand, completely, they have lives of their own. Believe me, I get that, now more than ever. But I would like to think that if I had a friend going through a hard time I would be there for that person, to listen, to offer support, to try and help any way I can. There were weekends where I would do nothing but cry for hours and hours because I felt so helpless and when I would call anybody up all I would get told was to come out and drink, which was the last thing I wanted to do. I felt really let down, disappointed, like my years of friendship had all been a complete sham.

One night, at the end of April, I unleashed these frustrated feelings in a semi-drunken banter with Lauren and Kimmy and, in return, I was shunned for two weeks. Instead of talking about it, they both just completely shut me out. I was at a total loss and was questioning every relationship in my life at that point.

In these sort of situations, I always look for the role that I played. What did I do? What were my actions? What am I responsible for? I know that I could have reached out more. I could have been more upfront with how I was feeling. Looking back, I think I was afraid to do that because the times when I did reach out I wasn't met with any kind of compassion or support.

It's upsetting and irritating to know that when I have real, hardcore life problems I can't seem to be able to rely on my friends. It really sucks because I feel like my friends are such an integral part of my life. I feel connected to them in ways that I can't even describe – and I always thought that connection went beyond just the good, free, drunken times out. And it seems that really isn't true. That's something I'm still trying to figure out in as this new year comes in.

April, May and most of June of this year was a dark time for me – really dark. Finally, at the beginning of June I realized I needed to move beyond Sharon. I wanted to be there for her any way I could, but I was going bankrupt doing that. I needed to start taking care of myself. I needed to find a "real" job and needed to get back on my feet. If nobody was going to be there for me I had to be there for myself.

Because of Lauren, I knew her boss at Beneficial, Jeff, on a semi-personal basis and thought maybe he would have a job lead for me. Not only did he have a job lead for me, but he wanted to try me out as a part time teller in his branch, as Lauren was promoted to working in the wire department (go, super L!) so there was a position open in that branch.

Around the same time I was interviewing for Beneficial, Rosemont College accepted me and wanted to know if I wanted to start school in July! Of course I said yes. I had spent the first half of my year lost and scared; now somebody wanted me to come get my master's degree?! Why the hell would I say no?

Things were finally happening for me – a job, graduate school. It's all that I wanted.

It just so happened that starting Beneficial and Rosemont happened on the same day – July 9.

Part Two: July 9 – current

July 9 was the most important day of this entire year. It's the day that I left one part of my life behind and started a totally new and fresh beginning, as if the first part of the year never happened.

I went from literally having NOTHING to do to having a job and graduate school in ONE DAY. I worked all day, went straight to school and didn't get back home until 11. This was going to be my schedule two days a week, plus working a FULL TIME job.

Full time, Michael? But I thought you said you were hired as a part time teller? I was, however, because I needed to be trained my first month at the branch was full time. Somehow or another, though, that one month of full time was stretched out to two months, and after a while the idea of me being part time sort of became a joke.

Summer of 2007 was crazy busy and it was so new to me because I haven't been busy like that since I left Drexel. Going to school and working a full time job? WHAT? But didn't I spend the first half of the year bankrupt and depressed? What was going on?

The transition was difficult and I actually did think I was going to quit Beneficial within the first month because the job started out horribly, but events played out in such a way where it became easier for me to work there and to also go to school at the same time.

Sometimes it gets lonely, with work and school full time, because a lot of the time it's just me. It's sort of a lonely road I'm walking, but it's a satisfying one.

Just three weeks ago, I officially moved up from part time teller to full time. I'll be eligible for benefits, 401k and all of that nifty stuff after the 1st of the year!

It was a lot to process, the change that happened on July 9, and I didn't have very much time to take it all in before it became my reality. The truth of the matter, though, is that I loved it. And I still love it. I would rather have a million things to do, then to do have nothing on my plate. I love having to get up and go to work every day, I love having homework, deadlines and responsibilities. I love the way that this year changed in the snap of a finger and, most of all, I am so proud of it because I made it happen. I didn't give up, I kept looking, kept searching, kept knocking on doors and, finally, eventually, thankfully, somebody heard my frustrations and decided to let me in.

And, that, was my 2007...