The last day of the year is scorecard time. Time to tally up the wins and losses of the year gone by. 2016 has been a strange vintage.
It will be remembered for a lot of reasons; all the legends who died; Brexit; Trump; the Chicago Cubbies breaking their 108 year curse to finally win the World Series. From there the scorecard moves away from the masses into the personal. The loved ones who died; the dreams that didn’t survive and the goals that were never reached. It’s always been a melancholy day for me.
That changed last year, around the time I started this blog. All stitched up after surgery, I took score of all the things that got done that were never on the list in the first place. I much prefer that tradition to the one that ends with me sobbing into a wine glass because I’m still a failure at everything I wanted to achieve.
So that’s the tradition I’m going with.
2016 was a mixed bag. The dream of going home to Scotland was dented but not crushed. So I can’t go back right now and I need to wait for some bureaucrat somewhere to do their job and update my details, but the door isn’t closed forever. It’ll just take longer and I’m ok with that.
An old school friend died on Thanksgiving after a long brutal battle with cancer. I’m thankful for his life, his courage and his spirit. It’s because of him that I took the chance to try and go home again. He taught me that life doesn’t wait for you to do all the things you want to do. So while you can, DO IT. He packed a lot into his 40 years and he’ll be remembered for showing us how to live. I’m thankful for that and that he’s finally not suffering anymore. There will be a toast to him at midnight with a great scotch because he did love a good dram!
I spent my birthday someplace new, same as last year. It’s now going to be an annual thing. Birthdays will be celebrated somewhere I’ve never been so I start each new year doing something new. Start as you mean to continue.
I finally manned up and submitted my photos to a stock agency. It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. Something I’d been meaning to do for years is finally done.
I wrote more, I cooked more. I enjoyed life more.
For the first time in my life, I have a home. An actual home where I can just be me without asking permission. I own a home which is something I never meant to do and I’m glad I did. It was certainly not on the 2016 menu this time last year! An unexpected detour onto the road less traveled and I’m grateful. To the people who helped me achieve this, thank you!
I finally have all my treasures with me. From childhood comforts dug out of boxes I’d forgotten about, to new treasures that I found along the way. My piano is finally with me and I need to learn to play again. I cleared out the excess from my life and now only have things that mean something to me. I can look at each thing and love it.
Paintings I did years ago are all up on the walls. I’m surrounded by things I’ve created and they are reminders to let creativity come out and play. There needs to be space for beauty. Life can’t always be about duty & function.
I saw my bestie this year and we had a great time chatting, laughing and binge-watching Outlander in comfy chairs. She taught me how to bottle wine.
I met new friends; driving across Illinois to meet a colleague from out of state and having lunch with her family. What a brilliant bunch of people! If you can put faces to the people you speak to across the miles, do it. I’ve met some lifelong friends that way. A few years back I randomly took a trip to Arizona to meet a client I’d been speaking to for a year and we’re the best of friends now. He’s no longer a client; instead a friend I love to death and a huge part of my life. I can’t remember what life was like before his crazy arse arrived.
I paid off my car and it’s ALL MINE!
I don’t have the love life I want, or the body I want or the dream job that I want, but I have so much more. Those things will come and if the last 2 years have been anything to go by, those things will come by unexpectedly, through no planning of mine. They will be spontaneous detours along the way and I’ll love them all the more for it.
So drink a toast to everything you gained this year, planned or not, and leave the sadness where it belongs; in the times long past, in the days of Auld Lang Syne.