i feel love

The new year is upon us. Jesus! Did I just use that ridiculously pat phrase? Yepper. I did.

It has been a very difficult year as years go, but as it comes to a close, I have so much to appreciate in my life, most of all that things feel really good in this moment. If how I feel right now is indicative of how the next year is going to play out, it looks like it is going to be a far better one than last year.

On the way into 2011, I had a twelve year old- but he swiftly became a thirteen year old before my eyes. Looking me in the eye without strain to his neck, and we seem to be seeing each other better than we were half a year ago. He raked me over some seriously hot coals, flipping me on all sides to be sure the embers made contact with every surface. I lived my own pain as a tween, my now pain as a mom of a tween, and I lived his pain. It was brutal. Somehow… By the grace of what magic we seem to invite, we have come out the other side of a long hot tempered summer. We are growing and moving toward a whole new chapter of coming adulthood. Of course I have to look at it that way. If I dive into the truth of what is to come in the teenage years… If I don’t convince myself that everything in the mind of my child will one day (SOON) make sense, I am going to put a backpack on, grab my honey and run to south east Asia never to be seen again.

I can get through the next five years… I CAN! Beside the most amazing man that ever set eyes on me and saw who I was… Still sees who I am and still stands beside me. I cannot give thanks enough for such a blessing. Words cannot express my appreciation for him.

My friends are surrounding me to glue back together a beautiful chosen family that had once scattered to far ends of the planet, making the dissolution of my “real” family less painful.

My creativity is flowing and I have begun a new book… I am about to launch the campaign to self publish the Haiku deck
that has been waiting so patiently in the wings for me to set it free…

I have been writing for the local paper, and though it is “only the local paper” it is the first time anyone has stepped up and said, Rachel, Yes.. I want to give your untrained, grammerless mind an outlet. I want to pay you to write. And it feels incredible. Two articles out, more to come.

Our home is toasty, our hearts are full. Life is beautiful.

Happy New Year!