I’ve always found summing up a whole year in one word or a few to be quite cheesy. Most days in the year are, after all, simply a blur of hurried routine, a mixture of highs and lows, minor successes, disappointments, non-starters, and a smattering of both good and terrible changes. No single event or emotion defines the whole 365 days. The year is never quite as great as you had hoped but never really that bad either.
Yet here is me being cheesy, looking back at 2015 with immense gratitude because it truly was an amazing year.
It’s all about perspective perhaps. Because coming out of the abyss of loss and despair that was 2014, the only way to go was up.
After making it through a year of unimaginable grief, I started 2015 with immense hope. There was fear, there was anxiety stemming from life’s unpredictability, ending up in the hospital on two separate occasions, but all through that there was also faith, gratitude and something to laugh about every day. Every single day was a victory.
Then teeny Nael showed up, and it was all tears and hysterical screaming and projectile vomit from there on. Days full of exhaustion, exasperation and unparallelled joy that only a baby can bring. In the middle of it we planned a move back to a city we loved, finally putting an end to spending several days each month in airport lounges and planes.
It had begun to seem like like a normal, ordinary life wasn’t in the cards for us. But in 2015 we found just that. A most ordinary life. With the same everyday routine, weekends spent lazing in front of the TV, cooking together, strolls in the park, Rhymetime sessions at the local library being the highlight of the week.
It’s been an extraordinary year because it’s been a return to the ordinary. And ordinary is wonderful.
