Shortest Day Of The Year, Happy Endings

Love All Around

Started Dec. 21

Today I have struggled to get what I need done and to make the entire day joyful. For the shortest day of the year, it has felt like many days rolled into one. An emotional roller coaster kind of day in which I often felt paralyzed or stuck. I'm just in my head too much. I have to remind myself to let go. I'm also pretty hard on myself - as I look back at the list of things I did get done, I know I would tell anyone else, way to go, you got a lot done.

I will be happy when this year is over. Don't get me wrong, I'm not wishing my life away, nor was everything about 2015 awful, but it was a year of struggling - some struggles in my own head like today - some financial, some physical and many from the heart. The struggles will and already have made me stronger. Still, I would like to move on from them in 2016.

Today's struggles - real and imagined perhaps, and of course all merely first-world problems - included an annual eval at work (it went well); laundry; packing for a much-anticipated Christmas trip to Gatlinburg; cleaning out my car stacked with everything from canned goods that need donating to dirty hockey gear and yoga mats; fighting and almost losing a battle with my duvet and its cover; checking on Mom and Dad's house; a very little bit of Christmas shopping; checking into a flight; trying to motivate to run and write.

Reading this now the next morning, my tasks were simple ones really. And yet yesterday, they seemed insurmountable. Nothing was simple. In between all that, there were the most happy, lovely words and surprises from the loveliest people in my life - Jeri, Tim, Heather, Mom, Kate (Marco Kate AND Atlanta Kate), Jess, Chris, Lisa, Christian, Mike Travis, Stephen, Angie, Courtney. Words and actions I cherish - from just the thoughtfulness of asking after me or remembering I'm heading to visit family to a post or tag on Facebook, a comment on Instagram, a book in the mail with the most amazing note and kindness, an email of encouragement. How lucky am I for such friendships, how special I feel after these words yesterday:
From Tim: Despite your need of healing recently, it is you who has helped me - as a runner, writer and friend. I'm inspired not only by your blog ... but also by your toughness and willingness to tackle things you don't know much about. You teach me courage daily. From Christian on this relationship from which I am healing - I'm including even the negative because you can't ignore the bad if you want to get to the good:

There's a long cultural history down where you are of drifters and grifters and louts. I'm not surprised you found one, nor am I surprised you fell for one because your capacity for loving is otherworldly, it seems to me. Thus what happened with that fucker is a reflection only of your good side. Hang in there.

You are an amazing human, one of the tenderest and most genuinely good people I've ever met. That comes with inherent weaknesses, no fault of yours. I will always feel love and feelings of protection toward you, and if I need to clear the debris in your vision once in a while so you can recognize yourself, it's a privilege.

And that was just yesterday. I'm not including this to brag or to even say I agree with them - I am humbled by these words and touched and hopefully appreciative of all the love and kindness that surrounds me.
So many wonderful people came into my life this year - new friends, old friends reconnected and even family - getting to know siblings better as adults. I shared my grandmother Ken Ken's (Foster but my sister Chelle was always hearing my grandmother call grandaddy Kenneth and tried to say it - the name was born) bourbon balls with friends at the marina the other day and told them her story - many new friends there who are kind and thoughtful who make me feel joyful and loved and happy. So after all this, at 10 p.m., I got out the door for a run - with a push from Tim via text, who wrote "20-minute run will improve your mood." So I laced up and got out the door. He was right - I knew all day that a run would shake everything out - I just had a hard time getting there.

When I got home, I decided I needed to do one small home improvement task - the tiniest of updates. I replaced a door stopper in a bathroom. I tried to use the tool to remove the drain in the bathtub, but I need more time and strength for that task. So door stopper exchange was good enough to make me feel I had accomplished something.

Old, ugly useless stopper

Well you know, new stopper