The Elysian Fields

By way of tidesong...

1. What did you do in 2006 that you'd never done before?
Lots of firsts. I sat by my father as he died. I discussed funeral arrangements with a funeral director. I stood by an urn filled with my father's ashes and greeted friends and family. I submitted poetry to The New Yorker. I wrote two pieces of short fiction that I will actually market until published. I am writing a third piece that is now twice as long as any piece of fiction, and I intend to get it published as well.

2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
The New Year's resolutions, if I had any, were quickly removed from thought. Resolutions I made at the border of May and June will stick.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
A cousin of mine, as well as a number of folks on my f-list (many in the last quarter of the year.)

4. Did anyone close to you die?
My father. A Scout leader I had looked up to. A close friend of my mother, who I really thought was an excellent person. My father's uncle, who was captured - and escaped - from Nazi POW camps (twice.) More of my friends mothers, fathers, grandmothers, and grandfathers than I can count. Co-workers and clients parents. Likely to add my team leader's dad, as he's been failing for a year, and is currently in the ER with heart failure of some sort. The lady down the street who I just found out has brain cancer, and is waiting out her time. More people that I have personal connections with have died this year than in any other year of my life - seemingly more than over the entire course of my life.

5. What countries did you visit?
Depends on whether or not you include fictional countries. None, if you don't.

6. What would you like to have had in 2006 that you lacked in 2005?
Whirled peas.

7. What date from 2006 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
Thankfully, I don't have a great memory for numbers, so I don't have to worry about that sort of thing. That, and I'm married, and not allowed to go on dates.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Finally managing to get some contractors who wanted to be paid to work.

9. What was your biggest failure?
Failures require giving up. I may put aside, but I'll get back to it sooner or later.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Spent the first three months of the year passing around bugs with the immediate family - wasn't a single week where at least one of us didn't get very sick.

11. What were the best things you bought?
The DR Field & Brush Mower, Lawn Deck, Snow blower, and Plow

12. Where did most of your money go?
Mortgage.

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Depends on what moment it was. I always go through interests in phases, and get really deeply invested for a short time.

14. Compared to this time last year, are you:

i. happier or sadder? happier

ii. thinner or fatter? fatter

iii. richer or poorer? richer (based on things other than money)

15. What do you wish you'd done more of?
I think I did all right.

16. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Ditto #15

17. How will you be spending Christmas?
With family, maybe even friends?

18. Did you fall in love in 2006?
Sure, but probably not in the way the question is likely intending.

19. How many one-night stands?
I generally sleep at night, and I tend to do that lying down, not standing up.

20. What was your favorite TV program?
Fraggle Rock (well, it *was* a TV program, and we watched many episodes this year on DVD!)

21. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year?
Hate just diminishes the one who wields it. Yes, people irritated me, and I let them get under my skin, and as I don't always know all of those people personally, it is likely that I didn't know them last year. But hate is too strong a word.

22. What was the best book you read?
Hmmm - so many good ones. I'll go with To Charles Fort, With Love (by greygirlbeast)

23. What did you want and get?
Love

24. What did you want and not get?
Love

25. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
I turned 37. Had croissants for breakfast, Outback for dinner, and Barnes & Noble for dessert!

26. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
A few less people dying would have been nice.

27. What kept you sane?
Kept me sane? That would be like closing the barn door after the animals had snuck out for a quick game of poker at the neighboring farm.

28. What political issue stirred you the most?
Monkey-boy and his regime.

29. Who did you miss?
My father.

30. Who was the best new person you met?
Haven't really met any new persons in person, although they were popping up all around me. Brandon turned two, so he doesn't quite qualify, but that would be the closest. Besides, it's a bit rude to single out one baby as being better than another.

31. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2006.
Love those around you.

I started this year off (LJwise) with a Year in Review for 2004, so I think I'll finish it off with something similar...

The last line of that YiR was "but hopefully it will have more positive changes and less of the less so…", and although none of my family got into an accident and I didn't see a worsening of my blood pressure and asthma issues, it still has had some serious rough patches.

Justin suffered from an inexplicable bout of hair loss in February - just a small patch, but 100% of the hair in a 1"x2" oval disappeared completely, overnight. At the end of October he wound up in the emergency room again, and was diagnosed with a rare viral disease Henoch-Schönlein purpura. Half a month later, my dad was in with blood clots in his legs. After returning with even more severe conditions, tests revealed a stage 4a gall bladder cancer infecting his liver.

With that kind of insight, I suppose it is still worse not knowing - the time from our noticing the hair loss until the tests turned up okay and the doc said "no problem" (yeah, that one still leaves a nagging feeling...) or the time I spent Google-fu-ing the heck out of words like "rash" and "legs" and "swelling joints" and stuff and came across every single disease and symptom known to man except the one the emergency room doc noted it on first glance, having run into it before; or the time spent waiting to find out what exactly was causing the blood clots because they weren't reacting to the blood thinners like they were supposed to.

But, yeah, finding out it was cancer, and a rare, severe, aggressive one isn't all that relaxing, but still better than the unknown. Sort of. Clean bill of health after treatment will be even better.

Of course, for me personally, nothing else really comes close to making it to the horizon of a YiR - those things have a matter of priority, and that doesn't even begin to describe the devastation and loss that so many of my friends (and their friends, and a few thousand or million handfuls of other folks as well) went through in New Orleans...

So once again I find myself ending with a summary of not being sure where the next year is headed, "but hopefully it will have more positive changes and less of the less so…"

( Child #3 )

( Health )

( Woods )

( Motorcycle Accident )

( Work )

Not sure where the next year will be headed, especially with some major overhanging issues (browse back through the journal for a number of them – I’ve been posting here for such a short time, it feels silly to repeat them, even if this is allegedly a YiR…), but hopefully it will have more positive changes and less of the less so…