I cannot see the last year clearly. It is blurred by tears of sorrow. I wept more this past year than in many years recently passed. Sorrows pulled and punched at my soul, stretching its edges and pummeling new shapes into my life, my community, and my family. It etched old-new patterns into the world.

I am accustomed to change, mostly. I embrace change, mostly. Each change set a new road before me, pristine and waiting, leaving all not taken strewn like litter behind. Broken promises and never-to-be-fulfilled dreams fell and shattered on the fading landscape. My eyes cracked open and poured.

Regret and “wasn’t worth it” mantras are useless things hiding behind corners, reaching for my throat as I pass by. I won’t allow their clutching to find hold. To move forward without forever tendrils of remorse required honouring the almost-was, allowing the grief to be. I wept as I released the old stories.

Pockmarked with deep sorrows, 2015 broke, recovered, and broke again. It kept me off-balance in ways I am unaccustomed to. By the end of December I was stretched so thin I felt see-through.

Now I do the very human thing and look to the calendar hanging on the door to shed 2015, renewing hope with the turn of a paper page. I know it is a meaningless act. I know it is a sacred act. Turn the page and step out of sorrow.

I’m claiming 2016 as the year of joy, preemptively. And as I will …