Thoughts for a new year.

My first post of 2012 was going to be about a realization I came to a few days ago. A light-bulb moment. The realization hit me when I was on the elliptical machine one morning. I realized that I have three very strong personality traits, all of which start with B, and all of which are quite shameful. I admit it. More often than not, I am 1) bitchy, 2) bratty, and 3) bullying. Am I being a little hard on myself? Ask my mother that when I chastise her in front of my father's family at Christmas for overfilling the take-home containers with pie such that the covers would squish them and make them "unpresentable." Or ask Doug that question when I fly through the bedroom at 8am with way too much energy, like a tornado, grabbing my sneakers and exercise clothes to head for the gym, all the while chiding him for being lazy (because he's still in bed, god forbid). And these are just two very recent examples. So I would say no; I am not being hard on myself. Just honest.

But what would really be achieved by spending a whole post on these three Bs? Just a lot of belly-aching from me about how I'm not my ideal self. That in and of itself (belly-aching about not being my ideal self) is not a wholly unpleasant topic and is one I often dwell on, but today I'd rather spend my time and energy on another topic. Let's talk about things to look forward to in the upcoming year. Christmas and New Year's a behind us; 2012 is underway (I've successfully written 2012 on three checks so far!). Let's focus on the good stuff before we face the end of the world.

Sherman is doing much, much better with his scratching. The prednisone is helping, thanks to Doug's determination to get the little pills down his throat. It is true that Sherman still scratches and breaks the skin, leaving crusty scabs and patches on his ear and neck that are completely hairless, but overall he is doing so much better than he was even a month ago. He has gone days without his cone. And just today I saw him touch noses with Meg before she let out the death growl! This is a Christmas miracle! Maybe 2012 will be the year of cat harmony in our household.

Doug and I (and possibly my mother and brother) plan to go away sometime in May. A trip! Involving a plane! For more than two nights! I am very excited about this and so is Doug. Last night I started doing a little research into places to go. At first we had our sights set on Europe but based on ticket prices I think we're going to stay domestic. Over $1100 to fly to Berlin? Close to $1000 to fly to Paris? And $800 to fly to London! Iceland was our only relatively inexpensive European option, at a little over $600/pp/round trip, but Doug's not all that keen on it, mostly because of the cost. Neither am I, really, and mostly because of the cost. Maybe I'm getting cheap in my old age, or maybe just more practical, but when I think about spending most of my waking life at work and sloughing through the days there, I think much longer and harder about how I spend my money. Spending a few days in San Francisco and then a few days in one of the Redwood National Parks would be fun. We've never been to Northern California. Or exploring the national parks of southern Utah - we haven't been to the Southwest, either. Or maybe 2012 is the year that we visit Seattle and Portland! We always say we want to go there, and we could see Rod and Tina. The funny thing about "settling" for domestic travel is that we really haven't narrowed our choices by much. I want to go everywhere. I am still overwhelmed by the possibilities.

But how wonderful it is to have possibilities! Yesterday I got side-tracked by looking through all the photos that we had taken in the past few years while I was transferring the files from the desktop to DVR discs. I was simply shocked by all the things that we have filled our life with. We've documented so much of our life, which makes me realize that every day we are doing something no matter how mundane or tiresome the days can feel. There were photos of our move to the house, photos of the many meals that we have made in our kitchen, photos of day trips and vacations and times away from the house, and photos of family and friends and friends' babies and friends' pets. When you do a mini-retrospective like that you realize so many things are possible.

I learned, too, by looking through these photos, that it's possible that Wyatt's death had a profound impact on our lives and for much longer than we originally thought. In looking through the photos from 2010, I can see how we felt his loss each day. The pictures of us and our life were very different post-loss than they were when he was still with us. Doug lost a lot of weight after Wyatt died, and I started to gain a fair amount of weight after Wyatt died. We looked different in other ways, too. Doug looked paler. My hair looked stringier. We also entered our professional crisis period, with me leaving my corporate job and Doug leaving his job. There was definitely a dark cloud above our house for that latter half of 2010, and really for the vast majority of 2011. But the final couple of months or so of 2011 have felt better. The cloud is moving on. The fog is lifting. Maybe Sherman has helped us. Maybe therpay has helped us. Regardless, we are seeing the possibilities now and it feels like a much better way to be. We look forward to 2012 because we know now that we can face difficult times and come through to feel the sun on our faces and breathe the fresh air on the other side of the void, but also, and quite possibly more importantly, because we have this one cat, this one soft cat in the photo below, who, regardless of year or season or mental state of her owners, is just the most photogenic cat ever and she makes us happy.*

*Much of the time.