It’s the last day of 2024. I’m ready to flip the calendar over to 2025 … that number just seems a little more complete, you know? A quarter of a century.
This year was a good one in SO many ways…
I mean, there was the dreamy way we started the year, floating on a water taxi in the Venetian lagoon watching a fireworks show. Ten days in Italy to kick off the year? Pinch me.
Oh and then in March our family grew by one black Cavapoo named Nina. Her name means God is gracious in Hebrew. She’s the gift we never knew we were always missing.
In August we fulfilled dream of many years and got a hot tub. It’s true … they really are a bit magic. It’s become the place of nightly relaxation, therapeutic soaks and long talks with our teenagers.
In August Chris and I celebrated 15 years with a hot and sweaty but lovely trip to New Orleans. What an amazing and incredibly vibrant city. Beignets and etouffee and oysters, oh my!
Those were some of the highlights. There were also trips to San Diego and Vermont and Nashville and San Francisco. A week at family camp in the Cimarron Valley with our besties. There were milestones like starting high school and starting grad school. There was a new job for Chris.
But there was also SO much heartache. This year seemed to be the year of divorce. Within our circle, five marriages ended. Statistically, this shouldn’t be a surprise, but bearing witness to the pain and trauma involved in the ending of a marriage is heartbreaking.
If you’ve read my blog for any length of time, you know it easily could have been us walking through divorce. [Some would probably say it should have been us.] It nearly was, but for one unanswered phone call.
But for some reason, that phone call didn’t get answered. Through friends who weren’t afraid to be in it and say the incredibly hard stuff and stick with us in the middle of the shit, through ongoing counseling, trauma and healing work, and sheer stubbornness, here we are. Still married. And I’m happy to say we’re in a better, more emotionally healthy place than we’ve ever been before. The entire trajectory of our relationship has changed and it’s literally miraculous.
Our kids have had a front row seat to the work it takes to keep a marriage together. We know they’re going to need plenty of their own counseling, of course. #normalizetherapy
But looking back on this year, I see what it’s all been for. It’s worth every single moment of hard.
So bring it on, 2025. Let’s see what you got.
Happy New Year, friends.
These Words of Mine 
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