The Worst Years

It is a new day and a new year.  I look back at 2012 with a smile on my face for all the lovely moments that have occurred, for the marriage that continues to grow and strengthen, for the family that keeps going and provides love and laughter and tears and worry.  Its been a good year.  As we all turn our focus to 2013, we are clearly hoping for a good year.  We are hoping for a year of love, of weddings and births instead of funerals and divorce.  We are hoping our politicians will join each other in the aisle instead of standing so far apart.  We are hoping for peace in our communities, in our country, and in our world.  Yes, I want to have a good year.

I know what a bad year is like.  I have 3 years in particular that could be described as the worst years of my life.  The first, 1993, was the year my mom got homesick and insisted that we leave Dallas and move to Ohio.  I spent the year trying to figure out where I fit in with kids who seemed strange to me and didn't have a guidebook to infiltrate their customs.  I resented my mom for taking me away from my home.  I experienced snow for the first time, and the novelty wore off within a few weeks, so that I was cold and lonely.  Next, 2000, my first year at college and the year I spent in depression barely getting out of bed.  The year I felt alone again, and even lost myself for a while.  Then came 2008, the year my parents were separated and my sister moved back to Texas, when I was unemployed and staying home with James and getting sick from the baby growing inside me, and my husband worked all day and then went to school in the precious few hours left each day.  Those years were the worst.  When I was so alone and couldn't even tell anyone what was going on, because no one seemed to understand or care.  But...

When I moved to Ohio, I met Melissa.  By the end of 6th grade, that terrible lonely year, we were best friends, and she has been there for me ever since.  When I graduated high school and started college, I started dating Chris.  By 2001, I was in love with the man I am spending my life with.  And in 2009, my parents got back together and Winston was born, and Chris finally got his degree so that he could be promoted and spend more time with our growing family.

Going through those worst years was...the worst.  But out of each, something good and meaningful and long-lasting came.  In the worst years of my life, I found hope and friendship and joy at the end.  The years in between have been exciting and fun and full of love.  So, while I truly hope that 2013 is even better than 2012, I can't say that I hope its not the worst.  Because I know that it will end, and I can't wait to see what it gives me going forward.