I keep trying to write a post about last year and last week, but I am in a weirdly negative place right now. I was feeling pretty good about the last year until I really took a good look at it, and it was all way too hard. I somehow got through it without feeling completely exhausted and alienated. In fact I feel OK.

A visit with my parents didn’t helped my attitude any. They live in their own universe, and I am at a loss to explain it to anyone but my siblings who just smile and shake their heads and say, “yeah, I know.” My wife and children want nothing to do with my parents at all. It all leaves me feeling inept, sad, and frustrated. It’s not a good way to end a difficult year.

Mary is feeling optimistic about going into nursing, and my job is not sucking nearly so much this year though I am tired of the whole overworked underpaid thing. My children are showing definite signs of maturing through their ups and downs and challenges. They are growing out into the world and finding their paths, and I look forward to supporting them on their journeys. I am moving forward with my own plans though they are much more vague at this point. The new year is like an undiscovered landscape moving around me as I go. When I started last year I could not have thought of all the challenges and interesting things that happened, and this year will be the same. I will start with ideas about what is going to happen only to be surprised over and over again by what actually happens. So why do I even bother trying to figure it out? I’ll just be here on the path looking at all the scenery and doing what I do to be me and support those around me to find their ways into whatever year we have in store for us.