On To 2021!

Pay close attention now. 
Start gradually moving towards the exits in small groups. 
Make no sudden movements. 
No loud noises. 

Don't. Touch. Anything.
The last person out, please close the door carefully and quietly behind you. 
If we do it right, 2020 won't notice us leaving until it's too late to try to follow us into the new year.

Yup, it's been a humdinger of a year. It's not the hardest I've lived through, but it is the one where I've had the most company in my attempts to keep an uncertain balance as things kept tipping around me. This time, most of the world is keeping me company as the planet does its wobbly spin. (There are definitely those who would beg to differ. Kate's dog, Sylvester, for one. He thinks it's been the best year ever! The people were home A LOT. He got lots of walks and hugs and consistent attention. He is now less anxious, more playful, better behaved. His life is GOOD.)

A few years back, I was in a stuck spot, and tried to imagine how life would be some nine months out. I thought things would be better, calmer, easier. I couldn't have been more wrong, and part of me is still convinced I jinxed the outcome by trying to skip over the hard parts I knew were between where I was and where I wanted to be. So I try not to do that anymore.

I think, when I look back on this year, it'll feel like one long detour; a convoluted journey down a side road which somehow managed to land me right close to where I started. There were interesting sights along the way - not the ones I'd anticipated, but good ones all the same. There were hurdles and dry spots and ice cream and moments of joy.

But in many ways, I feel as if I'm right back in the liminal space where I started the year, on the bridge between the known shape of my life as it was and the possibilities of the new shape it will morph into during the coming days. (Staying in the old shape is not one of my options.) I'm doing my best to look forward to those possibilities, to let go of the mighta, coulda, shouldas which arise when I spend too much time gazing back down the road I've just finished traveling.

I've gotten a good head start on moving on this past week. The quiet isn't as overwhelming today as it was the first few days after they moved out. I'm kind of liking the part where it stays clean(er). The cats are doing their job - they've given me something to fuss over, keep the house from staying too tidy, and come to purr at me at random intervals, so I don't feel too lonely. My days are managing to fill themselves with worthwhile things.

That's not such a bad place to start a new year.
Here's to a less interesting 2021!