Well, 2016 wasn’t the greatest.  It was one of the worst years of my life, that’s for sure.  But it was also a year of hardscrabble gifts, tiny glints of gold in pits of mud, truer connections in the midst of painful conflicts, moments of silence wrested from the roaring noise in my head.   It was a year I will never Forget, a year after which I never be the same, and a year to which I am more than relieved to bid adieu.

2017 crept in quietly while I slept, and I woke to its newness, and to my approaching 38th birthday on Friday, determined to make my world a different one.  In 2017, in these new days that I Hope are harbingers, I want to embrace myself, for all that I am, and all that I have, my bipolar disorder, my big heart, my potty mouth, my knack with apple pies, my bright kitchen, my dark past, my endless capacity always, to believe in a tomorrow filled with hope and health, and all the laughter and oversized mugs of tea that anyone could possibly need.

To the wonder of the future, and a whole fresh year in front of us:

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness.  I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can.  And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.” – Neil Gaiman