And so this is my attempts to write that letter, whether to you or really to myself, my summary, my years end.  So let's just go ahead here and wrap this one up... 

It has been a hard year.  A really... really... hard year.

When thinking, talking to myself in my mind, I have describe this year countless times as "my most grueling year ever."  Almost from the beginning, I have held this dread... this counting down of days until it's over.  And here we are but days away and I feel that I can finally lay my head down and rest.  2007 is gone!  Never to return, never to look back on, close the book I'm done... Goodbye! 

I say this to you and to myself and I know that it's not entirely true.  I am certain that I have had far worse years, although because they are passed, and I have successfully made it through and survived them, I somehow loose perspective.  

Sitting in the airport waiting my father’s arrival I said to John, "Thank God!  The year is almost over!  What more can happen between now and then?!?"

He replied, "We still have two weeks."

And then I found that but hours prior, my sweet cousin was being buried.  That at that very moment my family and more than a thousand of her friends were in mourning. 

I just need to keep my mouth shut.

Nearly a year ago when John and I were in the process of buying this beautiful  new home of ours, I did a tarot reading.  I know, I know… I have SEVERAL VERY Christian friends who are more like family who are shaking their heads at me right now.  It’s taken me almost a year to type this out because of that.  I’m going to hell… which I do not believe and we’ll just leave it at that for now.  So this reading ended with a particular powerful card.  Regret.  At the time I didn’t know which way to spin it.  I looked at it both ways, if we stay in this house we will regret it and if we move we will regret it.  Either way the outcome was regret.  I have refused to look at this card in the face of this past year. I just refuse to even acknowledge it, although John has found himself face to face, eye to eye with it more than once.  I try my damnedest, no matter the situation to never face regret.  We all make choices, whether for the best or not and the outcome is the fate of these decisions.  We jumped, and months later the market changed for the worse.  Our situation and outcome is still a stressful one and has affected and overshadowed the tone for the entire year.

This being said, I still believe that long term it was the right decision.  If we can somehow just make it through this storm…  It’s sometimes hard to see the beauty and appreciate it fully when it is also the cause.  With time, there again, is always perspective.  For now it’s just the ever familiar day by day and slow by slow.

I am so incredibly grateful for my sweet loving husband who has walked this path along side me.  Throughout this years trials, we have grown stronger both as individuals and as a couple.  There is no one that walks this earth who helps to make me stronger, gives me more motivation and direction than he.  He is my muse, my inspiration and my world.  There is no one that I would rather walk through the fires of hell with or the fields of heaven than he.  I am humbled and gracious for his place in my both my heart and my life. 

We’re approaching our three year wedding anniversary and it feels as though it was just yesterday that I was looking into his eyes, nervously saying “I do.”  I hope to always look forward to tomorrow with the one who hold my heart so dear.

With marriage on mind, the single greatest event of the year was the wedding of our closest friends Ty and Bernadette.  Two beautiful souls joined. The actually wedding and the celebration which followed filled our hearts, memories and house with a love and warmth that will forever leave its effect. 

Christmas day was spent again with the four of us preparing another successful celebration while my father kept close tabs on and trying out all of the fixings.  There is nothing that I have come to enjoy more in my present life than being in the kitchen with them preparing meals, decorating and preparing the house for moments that surpass extravagant.  My hopes are that this is just the beginning of many traditions and gathering to be shared with many.

We had a small gathering of wonderful loving people, both friends and family that even included a baby, little Luka Jule, a tiny trinket of love!  Our very first baby to be added to our immediate extended family.  A celebration of wonder and joy!

The most significant phenomenon that has occurred during the past year is the amount of people who have entered and reappeared into my life.  Prior to this year, I had more or less withdrawn from people.  Of course I had the occasional acquaintance which filled some need, but I had closed my self off to getting close to, opening and reveling to anyone, except for John of course.  But I had even closed off parts to him as well.  There has been a thawing of sorts that has melted my soul and spring has arrived in abundance.  I suppose that it was just time because I don’t feel as though it was completely in my control.  At times I still get fearful and want to retreat to that place where no one can hurt me.  I have recognized the sensitive and vulnerable side of myself which I want so desperately to hide, throw away… run from.  And I am now trying to merge the two, emotional and sensitive along with strength, into a functional being. 

But yes friends… these wonderful, wonder filled, amazing souls which gift my life.  I am grateful for you all.  Past, present… looking into the future.  Thank you for those ones who know who they are who have somehow helped this road to be far less treacherous.  

And then of course, there’s my health…  I’m just not going to go there.  All that I can say is that my energy level seems to be continuously decreasing with no alleviation.  The good news is that I feel that we have finally found an acceptable and trusting doctor, and I am now a Kaiser convert.  I fought for months protesting against.  I have found that I am nothing less than impressed with the Kaiser system and regret any amount of time and money that we had put into Providence.  My doctor tells me that I can look forward to another year or two of this.  I’m taking it a day at a time, looking for the worst but hoping for the best. 

I’m looking forward to starting the year off with a gentle yoga class, and I may even try a new acupuncturist.  There has got to be a way for me to gain my energy back, and I am willing to try just about anything.

The most significant experience which has had a life changing effect happened just recently.  It was this on-line writing course that I have mentioned and have just about completed.  It’s "just" an enrichment class, but the results were, God willing, life affecting.  It was by far one of the most awe inspiring things to occur in my life.  Words simply cannot express the openness shared and the heart felt support and caring disburse between perfect strangers.  At times it felt more like group therapy than a writing class. 

My outcome is that I want to write.  This is what I want to do.  I am good at it, damn good… and I have an effect with my words which can both uplift and heal. I feel as though this is my place in the world, and I need to set my foot in front of my mind and begin my walk one step at a time.   I need to put it out there and make it real. 

As many of you know, I have begun to write my book this past year, but because of distractions and health along with bottoming loss in confidence, the writing more than once has stopped.  I need to find a supportive place where I can not only thrive but will excel.  Again, I am putting it out there… because I am ready.  I have gained the confidence along with the perspective and focus that I need.  These tools in hand, I can not fail. 

It's so hard to not be grateful.  Because I truly am.  But with all the good that has happened, I continue to feel overshadowed by something else. 

Perhaps this year has been a breaking down of self to begin the rebuilding of new.  I find myself once again on the potter’s wheel.  Although I can not deny the good which is inevitably there, I am still broken down and weak.  My soul is tired which is not a familiar place for me.  I find that I am in a space at times of losing hope and full with negativity, and I just don’t know how to pull myself out.  I cannot identify with this current state and it brings forth fear.  I need rest.  I need my soul to heal.  I need for some of this, something… to be uplifted, a break in the storm, a calm.  WE need this…  My soul was so filled with hope at the beginning of 2007.  I was so sure, so certain… and maybe THIS was my fault.  But this breaking down, this constant wearing had grinded me down.  I am worn and tattered.  And ready for it all too just end.

In hopes, with what little I have left, of something new for 2008.  In hopes that the fortune cookie was indeed right; that I AM "almost there."