2012: Please leave. Now.

Carl & Tarri (Photo credit: carljohnson)

I recently had a phenomenally trivial family trivia question
enter my head: I suddenly had to work out where my great aunt’s pet parakeet
went in the summer, because I had no memory of it ever being at her summer
house. There was only one person left on the planet to ask, my mother, and then
it occurred to me that someday there won’t be anyone at all to ask. It’s not
the question that’s important, it’s having someone else who was there, and as I
get older, there are fewer and fewer people still alive who were there.

I never want to wish my life away, and any year I’m upright
is, ultimately, a good year, but I have to admit that 2012 is a year I won’t be
sorry to see the door hit on the way out. Too much upheaval, tension and
change. Within the family, there was cancer, beaten for now, and suicide, a horrifying shock. At home, there was a major timesuck of a project that,
while rewarding in a lot of ways, took me away from other things I love to do.  At work, there was a change in a comfortable
routine, a change of location, unfamiliar roles, and, now, massive uncertainty
about whether the entity has a future.

There was much that was good. My girls continue to amaze and
delight. I found myself up to some new tasks. My home repair and carpentry skills are
vastly improved, if my cycling skills are not. There has been art and paddling
and jaunts and a real vacation for the first time in years. We went places we
hadn’t been before, and enjoyed the company of old friends we don’t see nearly
enough.

There’s also this weight that I’ve felt around the holidays
for as long as I can remember. Not a bad thing, or at least it didn’t  used to be, but as I get older it feels
heavier  and heavier, this memory of all
those who used to be with us at holiday time, and who aren’t any more. All those boisterous people who gathered over lasagna and creampuffs every Christmas eve, talking about not much at all. Having a
recent death in the family, a heartbreaking loss, just presses down with that reminder that so many,
many people have passed on, and that nearly everyone I shared the earliest years of my life with is gone. Some of them have been gone a shockingly long time now, and yet
it seems like just yesterday that I was young and they were there.

Nothing to do but press on and greet 2013 with a fresh coat
of spackle.