Good-bye to 2008!

Wow, I can't believe its New Years Eve. Another year is just about past. I am so ready for a new year, and hoping to put some of the last year behind me.

2008 was a complicated year in my life. If you've kept up with me at all this year you may have noticed a general theme: pain in the midst of enormous blessings. I have felt so conflicted this year, angry and frustrated and sometimes sliding into bitterness over the deterioration of my career, before it had barely even begun and completely outside of my control. The nation's current economic crisis has arrived at my front door, after building slowly all year. Then, BOOM, less than a week before Christmas I was unemployed, with no prospects on the horizon.

If I was a betting woman, which I am not, but even I were I would be totally unable to place odds on where I'll be working 3, 6 or more months from now. I seriously have no idea. It's scary to have my professional future and source of income remain a total unknown. Possibly freeing though, right? Because I could be doing anything and that opens up a lot of possibility. I didn't spend three years in law school to give up now, but I am very much open to anything, if its the right thing. So who knows? A year from now what will I be? A lawyer (I hope). A corporate cubicle-dweller of some kind. A funeral home worker. A cake decorator. A dog-walker. A financial planner. OR, as my grandmother asserted on about two dozen occasion over Christmas, is it "baby time"? Sorry, Grandma, I don't think quite yet ...

But 2008 wasn't all bad. In fact, the absolute catastrophe that was my job aside, it was a fabulous year. Dan is doing great at his job, for which we are both extra grateful. We bought a condo, it feels like home, has plenty of space to grow into and is such a blessing. We brought home a freakin' dingo, ahem, excuse me - our beloved Puggle, Flutie. But he is a dingo, even still - for instance, just now he was suspciously quiet so I went downstairs to see what naughty thing he was up to, and found him chewing a wire fly swatter to bits. Of course! We continually remark on the havoc he has wrecked in our lives and wonder what the heck we were thinking. Only to drone on and on in the next breath about how much we love him and can't imagine our lives without him, no matter what the cost and head-ache. Flutie is our mischievous, cuddlesome furry child and I would not go back to our life before him now (really!). This was also a year marked by remarkable times with friends, great trips and lots of quiet, perfect moments of marital bliss. Yes, it was a very good year, in so many ways.

I also want to take this opportunity to say "Thank you" to the internet. Well, not the whole of cyberspace, but to the other blogs and sites I have frequented this year. I have been truly enriched by keeping up with the lives of friends, old and new, and even strangers - reading about the struggles, joys and mundanities of others this year, even from far away, has continually made me think and smile and almost always take some positive or, at least, interesting thought away to consider long after turning away from my computer screen. It has saved me, on more than a few occasions, to step outside of my own little world and worries to read and, yes, genuinely care about world and worries of others. So, thank you - honestly, from the bottom of my heart - for sharing your lives and family photos, for posting absurd YouTube videos, for your creativity and diversity, for being vulnerable and, most of all, hilarious. I know my own efforts fall pitifully short, but I keep coming back to this and summoning the courage to just be myself because I know that it can matter, even if only to myself most of the time.

I'll do more thinking about 2009 tomorrow and make a good solid list of goals and thoughts and hopes for what's to come. But for now, its still 2008 and its not quite over yet. I've got, oh, about nine more hours to make it count. I hope everyone has a safe and fun (whatever that is to you) night ringing in the new year.