Coming to Terms with 2007 (Or 2007 with Coming to Terms...)

I got this idea from Judi this morning. She, in turn, got it from a couple other blogs she frequents. The idea is to review the past year by taking the first line from the first post of each month. It looked like fun, so I thought I would try it. The results surprised me, a little.

I should preface this by saying that I am not one of those who never goes back and reads my own writing. On the contrary, I derive a measure of satisfaction from going back into my archives from time to time. I guess I just need constant reassurance that I can string together a coherent sentence or two.

So, let’s take a look at those first lines, first posts of the months of 2007---

January--Last Saturday evening we tuned in to NPR to be treated to "Special Coverage" of the execution of Sadaam Hussein.

February--Thirty years of childless marriage have by no means meant that our nest, or our hearts, have been empty.

March--I decided to post something pretty, because today was SO not.

April--Early last week, Democratic presidential hopeful John Edwards stood beside his wife and announced that the deadly specter of cancer had returned to Elizabeth Edwards’ life.

May--These days, American government is like a bad case of hives: crazy-making and torturous, and you don’t know which itch to scratch first.

June--The ever-shrinking neighborhood of the blogosphere into which I sank my roots almost four years ago, is once again twisting, turning, contracting...fading.

July--I did indeed have to terminate Mr. Hawaiian Shirt.

August--My next thirty hours will be spent preparing to step out of my new life and back into my old one.

September--After school, while my sisters glued themselves to soap operas on the big color console in the living room, I would hole up in my folks’ bedroom and watch the Cubs on their little black and white portable.

October--From time to time, I try to look back and assess the progress I’ve made in any given area of running the café.

November--Fall arrived at the café last month, dropping duffel bags full of problems into our laps.

December--In the last six weeks, my mother has been in the hospital; in a nursing home; a day away from going back to her apartment…then back to the hospital, and back to the nursing home.

Honestly, I thought I had spent the last 365 days (and more) coming here to whine about how tired, abused, put-upon and overwhelmed I was by the challenges faced by an over-the-hill small business owner. But, look! Only four of these twelve first lines are lead-ins to bitch-fests about my café struggles. This truly amazes me. Knowing how much of my life force really was poured into my business over the past year, I’m surprised (and happy) that the café apparently is not all I’m about.

What surprised me even more is that three of these posts are political rants. I can’t say how happy that makes me. I’d started to think that my political fire had been snuffed under tons of the chaff of everyday living. It was easy to explore and promote lofty ideals when I was half-retired and didn’t have anything else to do. Not so easy to write about, or even care about, those things when life is coming at you at 100 miles an hour. And yet…and yet, obviously, I still have my political wits about me. It remains to be seen how that will play out in the new year (2008, folks! I’ll have to get a new graphic for my sidebar…)

And then there were the posts about the losses…in February, we lost one of our dearest animal "children," and in December, my mom slipped away to the other side.

There’s even one post about one of my favorite subjects on which to rant—my ever-changing, ever-shifting relationship to this—my four-year-old ethereal brain-child. I’ve gone full-circle—from no readers, to lots of readers, back to (almost) no readers and all the places in between. I’ve been inside the community, and (more often than not) outside of it. I’ve had friends, and lost them, too. They’ve disappeared **poof** into the ether, never to be heard from again. But…I stick around. Never one to be unduly influenced by the actions of others, I soldier on. I like it here. I write here. I do it for me.

And to those of you who drop in from time to time to see what I have to say…thanks.

And Happy New Year.

Tags: New Years Eve 2007