Open the Damn Door

It’s hard to believe that this long, long year is coming to a close, and -- I’m not going to lie -- I won't be too sad to kiss 2016 bye, bye.  So many losses -- David Bowie, John Glenn,  Elie Weisel, Prince, Carrie Fisher, Debbie Reynolds, Leonard Cohen, my cousin, Peter, another mom in town, two young, young lives, a friend's mom . . .  e-stinking-nough, universe!  It would be easy to drown in the awfulness of it all.  Instead, I decided to cook and make a beautiful veal stew for New Year's Day.  My kitchen smells heavenly, right now. Tomorrow, we will gather around our table and enjoy an amazing meal, with prayers for a better 2017.

Yet, 2016 was not all terrible news.  I am alive for starters, and that's kind of a big deal.  I have been graced with family and friends who love me and have supported me through these many days.  I also learned some pretty significant life lessons this year.  It took me most of the year to figure them out, however, which is a bit embarrassing.

First on the list -- karma is fucking insistent. Have you noticed this?  If you did, why didn't you tell me?  Oh, you were trying to; my bad.   The universe's spiritual messenger was happy to keep ringing my doorbell, like the UPS guy during the holidays, until I got up, answered the door, and took the package, even though I wasn't expecting a package, and the package was a bit banged up and scary looking.  There were so many times over this year that I ignored the doorbell.  Hello, did you hear something?  Nope.  Damn, there it goes again. I should get that fixed.  Perhaps, if I go out the back door?

When I finally answered the door, took the package and opened it, its contents were simple. It was a note that said, "Write the story."  So, as scary as this is to me, that's what I am going to do.  I am going to write the story that I want to write and have wanted to write since I was about 15 years old when I took an elective writing class in high school.   I am going to try, at least, be the writer I know I can be.  I am going to write my story because it’s worth telling and maybe, by my telling it, it will help someone else going through a similar experience.

Next on the list, we really are all connected -- not in a "everything is perfect and wonderful on

Facebook way," but in a "ties that bind, you can't really get away from them" kind of way.  I had thought some of those connections were long lost to time, consigned to my memory's scrap pile.  This year, I have connected and reconnected with people whose names I never thought I would say again, whose faces I never thought I would see again, and others who are fast becoming close, or have become closer, to me.  It was as if I was doing a huge connect-the-dot picture without realizing it, honestly.  Of course, I did have help with this realization; one friend actually gave me the connect-the-dot book that she found buried in a long lost storage container and reminded me to use a pencil.  That's what friends are for, I guess.

The last big thing that I learned is all I really needed to do was "Trust the Journey," and I would get there.  This message is on a wonderful throw that one of my husband's colleagues sent me before my surgery this past summer.  Do you think for a moment that I focused on this message when I received it?  No, of course not.  I ignored it.  The more I ignored it, the more it kept being sent by different people, like my oncologist, for one, its most persistent delivery guy, and so many of my dear friends.   There it was, right in front of me on the cuddly throw that my kids would wrap up in whenever they got their hands on it. That was the lesson I refused to accept and learn, so karma kept kicking me in the ass until it finally got through.  Better late, than never.

Happy New Year!  Here's to 2017 -- we can only go up from here!