My 2011

My high school teacher once made us write down our predictions for the coming year on a piece of paper and then held on to it until the next year when we could review them to see how close we were to the truth. I carried on doing that for a number of years, I would seal them in an envelope on Dec 31st and then as technology developed would password-protect a file on my hard drive. I realized last night that I hadn't done that in a while; I guess it wasn't really that important to know what the year was going to bring.

2011, like most of my years, has been challenging and life-altering. We brought in the New Year with an amazing group of friends, the same ones we traveled to Mexico with in May to witness a beautiful wedding, friends who rushed to the hospital when I needed them, who we ate with, laughed with, shared Christmas with and who we will see out the year with. Full circle.

If it were up to me, that circle would include a lot more people all over the world. Whilst a part of me blames South Africa for splitting us up, I am so grateful for the opportunity we have had to live in this amazing country and the ability to expand the family of friends that I would never have met, had we not decided to leave.

Keith had a stroke in June. It burst the bubble I was living in and woke me up to some very necessary changes. While watching one of Anderson Cooper's shows, I identified strongly with him when during an interview with his mother he said that his life is defined by loss. The idea that I could lose Keith was devastating, not that it should have been any surprise, yet it once again woke me up to the fact that nothing lasts forever; a lesson one would have thought I had fully learned already. Coupled with the realization that this included my dogs sent me spiraling. If I am every in doubt about anything, there is one single person that I know will set me straight and I turned to her immediately. She told me that a health crisis is a call for transformation and I should heed that call. So I did.

I quit my job this year. It was a very hard decision. It was the easiest decision. It was the right decision.

The world continues to change and yet I still believe that it is exactly the way it's meant to be.

Here's to all of my friends and family, for liking my Facebook posts, for reading my Tweets and my Blog, for keeping in contact via email, sms and skype, for listening to me, laughing with me, crying with me, for irritating me, for loving me. Here's to Keith, who keeps me content and sane, and to my three fur children who love me as unconditionally as it should be.

Here's to 2012.