Balance

My Beloved, I think, was a little stung when I made an offhanded comment about the ugliness of 2007.

And, to give him credit, he's correct in saying that it wasn't all bad. Some of it was good. Some of it was very, very good. I just have a very bad habit of dwelling on the things that wore me down and wounded me rather than focusing on the things that lifted me up and healed me.

So, in an effort to achieve some year-end balance, a list of good things that 2007 brought our way...

First, answers. As terrified as I was of the laparoscopy and all that surgery entailed, it did achieve the end we were hoping for. It gave us answers. It told us that the reason we'd been trying and failing for almost two years was the fine weave of scar tissue I'd quietly grown after the C-section and subsequent blood infection. Armed with this information I felt less broken. Less useless. More hopeful.

2007 also brought us our Goddaughter. She was born in 2006, but we were given the honour of becoming her Godparents in July of 2007. I had just found out I was pregnant with the twins, just stepping onto the roller coaster that would chew me up and spit me out a month and a half later. Having that blessing - knowing that we were that loved and trusted and forever bonded to a sweet little girl we both already adored - helped me cope with the uncertainty and sorrow of the weeks that followed.

We are still together. We are still in love. We are still committed to finding the path that will lead us to the happiness we want so badly. We are also still crazy (perhaps increasingly so in my case), but we're crazy together. Always.

Our families are whole and healthy. Mostly. Our parents are getting older, and aches, pains and chronic illness continue to batter them, but they're here. They're still here. Thank God.

The incredible near-toothless beast is still here too. Still warming us up with purrs and headbutts and furry cuddles on cold winter nights. And on hot summer days. And, really, whenever the hell she wants them.

I found two new freelance clients that arrived, as if on angel's wings, a few weeks after the D&C, giving me the much needed distraction of busyness. And it happens to be work that I'm loving so much it almost feels wrong to call it work. But don't tell them lest they decide the joy of doing the job is payment enough.

We have a house. We have food. We have a car. We have enough money to support my crochet habit.

We had a very good year.

We had a spectacularly bad year.

And yet we are still here. Sometimes I wonder how the hell that's possible, but it is. Somehow, it just is.