2009
As 2009 draws to a close, and we all ponder the epilogue of the decade, I look back and I see that it I will clearly remember 2009 as a year of change. And not that capital 'C' Change that we began the year with. That 'Change' - the grand, sweeping "the world will now be a better place" Change was not what awaited us in 2009. 2009 was a year of a hard-won, bitter, fought-for kind of change. The kind of change that took everything that we were, grabbed it and and shoved it up against the wall, putting us face to face with what we could become.
In 2009 I lost my job, as the economic disaster found its way to the local level, spelling the end of the company I had spent 3 years trying to help raise up. It left me reeling, directionless, and adrift in a sea of uncertainty. My father moved almost 3,000 miles away, looking for new beginnings after living a life marked repeatedly by only endings. And I almost lost my mother to lupus, her health battered and bruised from years of fighting a debilitating illness.
In 2009, for the first time, I felt truly alone.
But for everything that went wrong, for every setback, I gained something. I found time for myself. For the first time since I was a teenager, I was able to stop and take stock of what it is I wanted out of life, instead of just constantly struggling for survival. I met new friends that became as close to me as family, friends who encouraged me to peruse my dreams, and inspired me to achieve greater heights in my life. In all that happened, I finally truly believed that I could do all the things that I wanted to do with my life. Damn the odds, damn the challenges that were to come. If I could stand up and survive what was thrown at me this year, there wasn't anything I couldn't do.
In 2009, for the first time, I felt truly alive.
2009 was a year of loss, a year of great sadness, a year of endings, and a year of beginnings. It was a year of joy, and a year of inspiration. 2009 was many things, but more than anything, 2009 was a year of change.