Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour.

Happy New Year.

I am determined to make it so.

2014 was such a horrible year.  Truly the worst year of my life.  The death of a marriage, the death of a niece, the death of that special, rarified familial happiness we enjoyed.  Mental fog and depression, physical lethargy.  I gained 10 pounds, I was sad, I cried all the time, I felt like shit.

And then it all ended with a period of time that I dread and despise every year -- the winter holidays and break from school.  School lets out, but I still have to work, so I send the kids to Denver Public Schools' day camp that they run on dismissal days, but they don't run it on ALL the dismissal days, just some of them, so some days I have coverage and some days I don't, so I end up working 2 or 3 days per week for 2 1/2 weeks and everything is disjointed and I don't get anything done and it drives me bonkers.

Christmas isn't even my holiday, and J had the kids on New Year's Eve, so I spent both of those days and nights alone, reading and watching movies.  Which is OK, but felt kind of lonely because I had nowhere to go and no one else to spend time with.

I needed the year to be over.  Once 2014 was over and 2015 started, then in my mind, I could take definitive steps to put it all behind me.  I could start exercising and eating well again. I could come out of my depressive funk.  I could raise my inner Scarlett O'Hara: I won't think about the bad stuff.  I'll put it behind me.  Tomorrow is another day.  Scarlett may have been an asshole, but she knew how to deal with her shit and get on with her life.  I always respected her for that.

It seems so arbitrary and stupid when I think about it, this obsession with the actual date. It's a date on a calendar.  Why couldn't I just start a health program in December?  Why couldn't I mentally and emotionally try to feel better earlier?  Why does flipping the calendar page from December to January make a difference?

It just does, at least for me.  2014 felt like a monster's claws to me, holding me in a cold, awful grip. And with the turning of the clock and the calendar, there is a releasing of that grip in my mind.  It's a way of compartmentalizing and saying, OK, I got my time to wallow and be sad and unproductive, but life goes on and it's time to get busy living.

So I am.  I'm back on the fitness and health train, and am already feeling so much better.  J and I are filing divorce papers this week.  I am making an effort every day to think about something that I am grateful for in my life.  I'm still walking to work and taking pictures.

I still miss Emma, and I am still heartbroken by her death.  That will never change.  I can, however, choose to remember her in a way that doesn't utterly devastate me.

The other day when I was walking to work, I saw this older couple walking in front of me.  They looked to be in their late 70s, at least.  The lady had the kind of hair-do that one only achieves by going to the hairdresser to have it "set."  They were walking hand in hand, and it made me smile.

I don't have any particular desire to be in a romantic relationship again, or to remarry.  But it would be nice to have someone to hold hands with on a walk, or to kiss at midnight on New Year's Eve.

Here's hoping for a joyous 2015.