2011

"Grief is like the ocean; it comes in waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim." -Vicki Harrison

It's January 21th, 2012.... The temperature is about 10 degrees F as I look out the sliding glass door to the back yard....which was mostly brown until just a few hours ago...almost no snow so far this winter... See? Some wishes do get granted.... I can see a few hearty leaves still clinging desperately to the trees.... In hope, maybe? Belligerent defiance? Are those the survivors? Or just the pathetic fools who don't know when they are defeated?

As reflected by the absence of any blog updates, 2011was a difficult year to write...It was a year of extremes..... joy and hurt, hope and desolation, challenge and defeat... small gains and devastating losses, hard choices interspersed with no choice at all... Simply a veritable roller coaster of emotional highs and lows. And many, many days of questioning my reasons for, and desire to continue participating....No, 2011 won't be going into the books as one of my favorite years but will certainly never leave my memory.

It was a year of incredibly hard lessons. Reminders that even things I thought I could count on can be taken away....without my consent or consultation..... The things that I lean on for balance can be snatched away in a breath. Then the tumbling, wild cartwheeling as I look to find some purchase, something to hold onto to right myself again. Sometimes successful, sometimes not.... Sometimes, someone unexpected stepped up and carried me across the worst of the ride....sometimes with just a reassuring word, sometimes with a hand of support, sometimes with an action that was completely unpredicted...... and sometimes by grasping my hair and dragging me along, kicking and screaming. I hope you all know who you are...and know that I thank you beyond expression. And to the others...I hope you know who you are too... I thank you for your ruthless illumination...

There are regrets....thousands....a litany of transgressions that are irredeemable.... Actions, words, choices... I see them every moment of every day, knowing there is no absolution. But they are my sins...and I embrace the pain I feel as penitence for each mistake.

I have judged some things not worthy of my effort....and been judged just as harshly, for my worthiness. I have been deemed expendable by some, and so I have deemed some dispensable.... With sanguinary precision, I have extricated myself from certain attachments. Better to bleed on my own terms....by my own hand....

Now I find myself in an unfamiliar world. A world of autonomy.... where I am responsible for no one and no one is responsible for me. I've stepped into 2012 with a simple goal of survival and just a tiny amount of hope, trying not to set myself up for too far of a fall. If I stay closer to the ground, it's easier to get back up again. 

Happy New Year from the Dark Side.....
*listening to "Remember Everything" by Five Finger Death Punch