bye bye 2018

We're packing for our 3rd trip of the holidays - back to our friends in Onrus for the 3rd time. We've done a crazy dance of back and forth for Christmas and cat-checking-in and playdates for the girls and catch up time for us.
It's such a soft landing there, and so worth it for the chill factor, but it has been a bit of a whirlwind of laundry and packing and unpacking and repacking.

I couldn't leave this space hanging from September though, and had to squeeze in a quick post to say bye bye 2018, let's not see your kind around here again please.

It's hard to dismiss a whole year as total shit, because I'm deeply privileged in my life and family and work, but this one was hard, really hard.

The sting at the loss of my friend has not eased. The void is as gaping as it was, the physical shock when it hits me again that she's really gone is as winding, as hollow. But the profundity of the gifts she gave has grown. In life, in sickness, and in her dying she bestowed so much, left so much of herself behind to think on, learn from and develop further as I age.
I wish I could thank her one more time.

All the other losses have piled up too - my mother-in-law not least among them. This time of year is hard, Christmas was different, the little Ouma-shaped hole in our lives yawns deeply.

So many I love have had it so hard this year, so much loss. I was right to be cautious.

But, we look ahead - because what choice do we have, because where else do we go and because this is our one wild and precious life, and we must live it. Through pain, through sorrow, we must live and live and LIVE.
We owe it to those who no longer have that privilege, and we owe it to ourselves.

See you next year blog, thanks for waiting patiently here always.