This year, I screwed up several dear friendships, probably irrevocably.
I made new friends; and recovered friendships I had thought lost, or aborted.
I’m still employed. In my circles, that’s a fair accomplishment. They still like me, and they haven’t taken away my internet privileges yet (gods only know why—it seems like they ought to.)
I started school in August. So far, I have accumulated 15 total credits and a GPA of 4.0.
The huge Chief Illiniwek paper I buried myself under for the month of November earned A’s; and my sociology teacher asked to use it as a (positive) example for her future classes.
I learned. A lot.
I watched one of my closest friends, who divorced the man who I am closest to in the world besides my husband, then let go of a wonderful man; marry another (also wonderful) man.
I got to walk in my woods, in their glory of red maples, gold-green birches, and steady green pines; and I got to swim in my lake, calm and tasting sweetly of pine and fallen leaves, under a blue autumn sky.
People I’d never met responded to words I wrote, and understood what I was trying to say. That, that is a gift beyond my accounting.
I gave extremely useful advice, and was given some. Also some not so much useful, both ways.
I listened to and read the news. I wept, and pounded my fists, and donated, and wrote letters, and wished I still believed in divine justice, because there are some people who will probably never get the earthly kind, and wouldn’t it be nice if they got SOME.
I saw, close up, whitetail deer, mallard ducks, grouse, woodpeckers, praying mantids, dock spiders, enormous house centipedes, a foot-long earthworm, red dragonflies, blue-green grasshoppers. I held in my hands a robin (who was sitting stunned in my driveway, probably after hitting the porch window), as well as a red-spotted purple (butterfly), which climbed onto my finger when I offered it. Just last night, I held baby Alex, who stared at me with enormous milky blue eyes for what seemed hours, both of us in complete absorbtion.
I didn’t cut any new ground in the garden, but I didn’t lose any either, and there were moments of perfect beauty this year—the lavender, the love-in-the-mist, the columbines (Oh, the columbines!), the linaria.
I made probably twenty pounds of toffee; two batches of jam and two batches of apple butter; I don’t know how many batches of cookies and homemade pretzels. I didn’t feed people healthily, but by gods they certainly enjoyed it. And I made soap and lip balm; ornaments and jewelry; and knitted pretty and useful things.
I heard, and saw, felt, touched, tasted, and smelled both beauty and ugliness in a thousand ways. I created a bit of it here and there.
I love, and I am loved.
That will suffice. I think it must.
Stephanie,
What a lovely post…you have given me encouragement and hope.
This year has been so difficult for so many and I feel so downheartened.
Thanks for the uplift and Happy New Year!
Beautiful piece.
Wonderful piece. Thank you.
You’ve set a standard the rest of us can strive for in the coming year. Nothing beats holding babies and staring into their eyes; I know this from recent experience myself. Thanks for the post.
Thanks, everybody. And Charles: I don’t like kids much generally, and don’t plan to produce my own, but it’s pretty neat to be looked at intently by a critter who’s just starting to see the world. Babies of all species are cool that way (plus, you know, the cute).