my four letter word for the year was DARE
so what was so daring about 2014, you might ask... i dared to dream BIG. i dared to be over the top excited about an adventure. i dared to get on an air plane and fly across an ocean for more than 10 hours, with the knowledge that these days you can LOSE a freakin' plane. i dared to travel to a place where they are known for deadly animals, insects, snakes, fish and CAMP in a TENT! i dared to walk the streets of a huge city without having any idea if we were in a good/shady part of town. i dared to close my eyes and open my heart and just be present. i dared to dance like no one was watching - surrounded by thousands of people. i dared to ask complete strangers if i could drive their boat (catamaran). I also dared to look the envious passengers in the eye and think to my self loudly "yup i'm driving this ship" :) i dared to swim with tropical fish and hold a blue star fish. i dared to add to my "title" - World Traveler! i dared to light 44 candles in my house and wish as i blew them out. i dared to enter my dark and twisty time giving myself permission to feel ALL my feelings for as long as it takes.
i've learned to say without panic or heart palpitations "i'm middle aged". I have also learned that middle age is a lot like going through puberty again. your body is doing strange things and your hormones are a bit erratic and you grow hair where you have no idea of any good reason to have hair there! speaking of hair, i've learned it is a curious thing to become more salt than pepper.
over all it was a good year. except for one thing... i have misplaced my hope. i can not really pin point when this happened exactly. its like one day i noticed i didn't have very much and before i knew it, it was gone. (deep breathe) i usually psychoanalyze the reason to death, but i find myself realizing this is the ebb and flow of life - kind of a high tide low tide type of view. i've made a conscious decision to not look for the reason why, but accept this to be and move on to finding it again.
my word for 2015, you guessed it HOPE. there are many definitions for hope, but my favorite is : to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence. i think i'm off to a dashingly good start ;)
on this day thirteen years ago i said good bye to my dad. i said lots of things to him that day... saying good bye was the beginning of the hardest things i've had to do. i miss him regularly. i miss him calling me and reminding me we hadn't spoken in a while - this was usually in some cartoon voice :). i miss him the most around my (our) birthday. i miss him telling people my favorite cake was chocolate even though my favorite cake has never been chocolate... HIS favorite cake was chocolate. i miss us arguing about the meaning of life. i miss his influence and his brutal honesty. i miss his laugh and the way he would light up a room just by entering it. i miss his dumbfounded look when i would say something smart. i even miss when he would embarrass me in public on purpose.
thirteen years ago my oldest was thirteen. my dad has been gone half of his life... lots has happened in these thirteen years. i survived being a single parent to two teenage boys and watched them grow up into men right before my eyes. i witnessed the birth of my grandson, and just like that became a grandma. i helped take care of my granny b until her very last heart beat... i've still been learning how to live in the world without them in it. seriously, thirteen years doesn't seem that long ago...
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