Reflections on 2017

“Hope smiles from the threshold of the year to come, whispering, 'It will be happier'.” - Alfred Lord Tennyson

My thoughts are muddled on this New Year's Eve morning.  I am unsure how to characterized 2017 in its dying hours.  In some ways, it was a year of firsts for me.  In others, a year of, 'Oh God please, not again.'

I walked in the first protest march of my life in January, joining 60,000 other women, men and children in the Women's March on Washington: Toronto.  It was a powerful day.  Jacob moved out of the house in February and I went into a tailspin, trying to adjust to life in our permanently empty nest. June brought me a wonderful week with Merv in PEI, exploring the seat of Confederation.  We had a great time but it was in that week that I first noticed that I wasn't feeling so well.  I was more breathless, more tired than I had been since getting my pacemaker the year before.  I tried to convince myself that it was emotional fatigue or just a natural part of aging.  I could not. Tests in July screamed the truth.  I have developed heart muscle failure.  It has been a blur of medications, tests, painful procedures and consultations.  There will be more surgery to come in January.  In the midst of it all, there was a wonderful family vacation to Wales and England both to celebrate the wedding of my brother-in-law and to spend some quality time with Jacob exploring London in a different way than we have done in the past.  It will live in my memory as one of the best weeks of my life.

So, indeed the year had its struggles but it also had so many gifts.  I am leaving it without bitterness, not feeling the need to stay up until midnight tonight, just so that I can watch it die.  Unlike the beginning of other new years, I am starting 2018 with no resolutions, no long-term hopes and a measure of trepidation.  I just want to get through January with as little pain as possible.  It is not worrying about the big outcome of surgery that is taking up space in my mind.  It's the anticipation of the pain that is headed my way again.  I wish I was brave.