This was the best year of my life. Maybe I had more carefree ones when I was 5 or so, but this was the happiest one that I can remember. I was in love like a Van Morrison song and that kind of thing doesn't happen every year, or sometimes ever depending on who you are. I danced around inside that love like a kid playing in the rain. It was great, and it was swallowing, and it was bigger than I dared hope for. And even though the boat got washed ashore in the end, I am grateful to have been in the ocean. And I am grateful that my shipmate rowed with me from beginning to end.
For nine months, my daughter had a best friend who wasn't boring like her dad or selfish like her equally aged cousins. She loved someone outside of her family, and that is the greatest thing she could have learned this year. She is still saving a third of her Christmas candy for that friend and that floors me. I love Ellie exponentially more than I did a year ago. Than I did a day ago.
This year I received the most selfless kindnesses from a person I thought could only ever hurt me. And I learned to forgive. Because she made it easy. I am not in love with her, but I know that God is. And so is her daughter.
I found my friends again. My friends that I had hid from in a comfortable cave. I found them on rocks and on skis and in Sin City and in Mexico and online. And I found them calling me when I needed someone to call me. They are holy white elephants in the temple of my need. They are family like nobody's business.
I am cautiously grateful to start a new year with a broken heart. There is fathering that needs improving and a relationship with THE Dude that can only get stronger. And more piercing. And I am eagerly awaiting another round with Van Morrison.
