If you know me… you will know that I do not cling to religion… and my Sundays are spent with the different correspondents of the CBS Sunday Morning news program… and have been all of my adult life. If you live with me… you either learn to love it… or leave me alone with my coffee through it… I prefer to watch it in silence… though some of the stories spark such conversations that we miss the remainder of it…. except the moment of nature… when everything stops… and everyone runs in the room to watch in silence the beautiful blue marble we live on… seeing and hearing sounds we have never experienced… or ones we have and we relive it through that moment. I have many favorites about this program… Techno Clause is a HUGE hit in our home… but the Hail and Farewell episode of the year is always something we watch in reverence and wonder…. This year was no different. I remember sobbing through the Hail and Farewell to 2022, But I do not remember why… and as my soul was breathed hope this morning through the Hail and Farewell to 2023 I decided I wanted to write why… see the program doesn’t really change much… life continues… people live and do great and terrible things… and people die… and stories change our world and the planet is always getting warmer… but what does change… is me.

I had the dawning realization this morning… as I seem to be processing some trauma of that last few years… and shedding some of my careful compartments of emotions and thoughts tucked away for a safer calmer time to unpackage and feel… that… well as cliche as it sounds… it is what it is. I watched as Anderson Cooper talked about this as well… funny how some of the people you love and admire the most you have never met… Anderson Cooper is one of those for me… Mr Amazing suggested that if I did know him I may not feel that way… and I responded with ofcourse I would. Because I understand every characteristic… every value… comes with its other side… infact thinking two sided is very narrow in of itself… and as the news program alerted me to the fact that shooting down the Chinese Balloon… happened this year… that the boats and submarines that imploded or capsized killing so many were this year…. that the canadian wildfires… the Redwood fires… the Hawaii fires… were this year. In a year of mass shootings being daily news… and two wars now raging… the middle east one joined the Ukraine/Russia one… though it is not eithers first. Time seemed to slow down… it is an illusion… created by so much happening.

So in this spirit… I too would like to bid 2023 Hail and Farewell…

First we Hail…

Hail to personal growth and development- I mentioned those containers above that I need to unpack and process… I have been doing this slowly… in silence… as I mold different tiny things from clay. I have learned a lot… mostly good… and may bad…. but I am going to stop there with those adjectives… because I do not believe events to be so easily categorized… so many consequences of something bad or terrible feeling at the time do turn out to be good… and some of those low hanging fruits that bring immediate joy… can turn sour in retrospect. Nothing is Black and White… it is always in the middle of that grey area somewhere… and HOW GREAT IS THAT!!!

Hail to Mr Amazing. Do I even need to say why? I love this man and our patchwork tribe more than there are words in my vocabulary to express. So I won’t try. I will continue to just love as I do.

Hail to our commander in chief! Politics are exactly that… Grey… and my feelings about President Biden are also somewhere in the middle… and me with my feelings about things can go jump off a cliff… because it is events that he is ushering in that matters.. and I am grateful for so much of that. Did you know that it was Nixon that signed the endangered animals act into law? Thanks to sunday morning I do now too… all I knew of Nixon was watergate… but the man did some great things… again. Grey is always the answer

Hail to my babies!! (I gave birth to one… I have many) They are the most amazing creatures! Through the black and the white of their lives… I get a front row seat to all of it… someone hand me some pom poms… cause I cannot possibly cheer for them any louder…

Hail to my dad!!! This one is a very recent story… and it is his… but my part of that story was finding a friend in him… finding some interesting traits we share… and honestly finding out how much I just love him. Weird right?

Hail to my babies babies!!! OMGOSH!! I just cant even. I grow SO much personally because of these little monsters. I stay mobile and driven because of them. I am loved. I love them so.

The point of all of this… is there is no good and bad… there just is life. What an amazing year it has been… what an amazing time to be alive… ofcourse… that could be said clear back as far as we know… and as far forward as we can imagine…. Surely I am not getting my point across… because I do not have the words to express it… other than Grey. So lets move onto some farewells

Farewell to parts of my brain… Farewell to a time that my License plates did not announce my disabilities… Farewell to my 40s!! Farewell to some family and friends… Farewell to a version of me that I have outgrown… Farewell to some ability… and mobility too… I must say farewell to some things… in order to make room for new things… Farewell to some of the darkest personal times of my life (yes, this year, I unpackaged some of those containers and climbed inside of them and hid in the darkness where I wallowed in the pity of it all… and then stopped)

So if the best analogy I have come up with for this place that I am in… is two sides of a coin… and life is one big coin toss… Throw the fucking coin!! and lets do it again and again and again.

I would like to pause and acknowledge… I didn’t write this year… I didn’t write birthday letters… I didn’t do a lot of things… but the other side of that coin is the things I did do… and I am so grateful each and everyday for the people that make it possible. (I am one of those people as well) Love is the religion I cling too… and it has brought me so far!