For the past 4 years, I’ve made a concerted effort to take each day one at a time. Taking on the Daily Photo project was a good exercise in marking each day as one moment in time.
It was a year of letting go, expanding horizons, and dreams coming true. It was good year — as you can clearly see — in spite of a few setbacks.
January
Right off the bat, the year brought the challenge of fighting off illness — which is a bit funny seeing as how I picked HEALTH as my word of the year. I took on a 2nd (very part time) job at a local running store, ripped up a list I’d clung tightly to for quite some time, and enjoyed a moment of realizing that my boy had become a man. I also learned to see the man I’d once thought as perfect a bit more clearly and purposely broke a few coffee mugs as a way of letting go. I removed my ring and cast out my fishing line to see if I might hook a “good catch.”
February
I was faced with a rush of painful memories when a colleague needed a 911 call and, later in the month, was reminded (in a dream) that a bit of neutrality can help on a bad day. I was thrilled to verify that The Pilot was not for me. Towards the end of the month, I decided that it was time to search for answers to the many lingering questions around my late husband’s death.
March
When my search through the medical records was complete, I searched my heart for forgiveness. Later in the month, we took time to say hello to lost love and to embrace new love as well as a new season.
April
I remembered how delicious life is when you drink it in. I allowed, even encouraged myself to cut corners and got up at o’dark thirty to visualize running during a spinning class. A brown-bag-lunch stimulated my own post hoc analysis. While swimming, I found a few positive strokes for myself — as well as a cute little distraction. After a whole lot of hard training, I wasn’t surprised that I did not BQ in Big Sur…but I sure was disappointed.
May
It was surprising and wonderful to find a bit of immediate gratification, something I miss about leaving bedside nursing, while working the running store. A bit of lens envy resulted in some pretty cool photos of the TdC and new level of exploration in my photography endeavors. I finally braved barefootin‘ in VFFs and learned valuable lessons about easing into this new and wonderful world. Meanwhile, BoBo was sworn into the Air Force with plans for delayed enlistment and I began thinking about how differently things might have turned out had his father still been alive. YaYa, on the other hand, began stressing over the end of the world. Fortunately, I found my life preserver.
June
This was a month of appreciation: Life, good friends, my 1st vacation since I can’t remember when, and beer. As I was busy being thankful for all these things, BoBo’s return home gave me one more thing to be thankful for.
July
I voiced my opinion on growth and relationships, and braved the treadmill AGAIN. I tossed my training wheels, so-to-speak, through caution to the wind, and completely changed my race plans. My world began turning upside down once more — guess the honeymoon phase of BoBo’s return had ended. But I found nice amid the mess.
August
My training progress was coupled with challenges but I found ways to make it interesting. In parallel, YaYa was doing his own training for football and trying to make weight. Then, I got the crazy idea to run a marathon in my VFFs. The highlight of the month was an amazing hiking trip to Yosemite and reaching the top of half dome!
September
Half Dome would surely be a hard act to follow, but that was no reason to deny other fun adventures. Amid all this fun, I thought back to when all I have was wants. As race day got closer, I began making as many good measures as possible. And then the madness began — as did knee pain.
October
Race day nearing, I began working on my race day playlist. I got a little hung up pre-race…for just a bit. In the end, race day was fabulous. Boston, here I come!
November
The year is quickly coming to an end. My wedding anniversary is nearly normal…except for a pulled muscle. I tried, but failed, to run a half marathon and was given positive strokes for a small act of kindness.
December
The end of the year came quickly and left even quicker. I resumed running…slowly, played around, celebrated another year of life, and ended the year on the right foot.
…and the journey continues.
here’s to a good year for you, Juls! can’t wait for Boston!
Happy New Year, Juls!
Excellent wrap up to a pretty good year!