These are my children. Aren’t they lovely?

Here’s a thing that should never be done to children: no one should ever try to turn them against their parent. If their parent sucks badly enough, the kids will eventually figure it out themselves.

Here’s another thing that should never be done to children, even after they are grown: their soft white under-belly should never be exposed to others.

People who do those things need to be excised like a cancer.

And here’s a thing about communication: you can’t complain about the lack of it if you delete or ignore it when you get it.

And here’s a thing about passive-aggressiveness: I’m better at it, and I’ve just raised the bar. In public. Because my attempts at direct private communication have not been acknowledged, and I’m calling you out.

No pic for this post. There may be one later, or I may be so busy enjoying my day that I forget to take one. Such is life. But I want to say some things about 2015 before I hit the shower to get ready for 2016. I took the tree down today, you see, and that is always my cue to ponder the year just past. And it has been an amazing year.

There have been accomplishments: graduation, work. The first half of the year was very goal directed for me, a final sprint to the goal I set in November of 2010. I made it. I did THE THING. Go me.

But the second half of the year, in particular the last quarter of the year, has been a time of letting go. With graduation achieved, I let go of the reins. I quit pushing so hard, over-steering. I did less of what I “should” and “ought” to do and even more doing what felt right. Now you know, I don’t even have to say, that what feels right isn’t necessarily the same as what feels good. In this case, some things felt pretty shitty in the moment.

The thing I did, after all that push push push is to stand down and let things be what they wanted and needed to be. My work. My relationships. And this last part is what I have been pondering the most today. When you let relationships be what they want and need to be, interesting things happen. Some end, and in the ending there is goodness called relief. Some alter course, and in that altering, there is goodness called joy. Some speak their truth so loudly that it can no longer be ignored; but hearing a truth you’ve been trying to deny is goodness called release. Some grow deeper and reassert themselves as bedrock in your life and that is goodness called solidity. Some remain, but much smaller than they were, a goodness called freedom. Some new ones develop, goodness called potential.

Sitting here on the last day of 2015, I feel good. No, I feel GREAT. I feel relieved, joyful, released, solid, free, and full of potential. This has not been a bad year. At all. I am neither happy nor sad to see it go. I do not hold the coming year to be either magical or miserable. I hold it to be what it is: a measure of time that I can fill with love and laughter. Or not, as I choose. It will be what I make it, even if, and maybe especially if, I make it so by letting things be what they are moment by moment, in flux.