20-20 Vision

As of tomorrow, we will have a new month, new year, new decade.

While it won't necessarily be a clean slate for me, when I look back on the past decade, it comes pretty darn close.

Because, lemme tell ya', the twenty-teens  and pre-teens were a bitch.

There were so many many things going on in my life and the lives of my children.  

A short list, in no particular order...

driving lessons, marital troubles, homework battles, college, counselling, new kids in the family, soccer games, high school, surgeries for the kids, surgeries for myself, IEP meetings, braces, hormones, graduations, teenage relationships, animal acquisitions, animal deaths, children moving in (sometimes not my own), children moving out, new old friends, middle school, divorce, proms, downsizing, building fences, building chicken coops, Reactive Attachment Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, runaway ponies, moving, mental health issues, re-entering the work force, death of my mother, Residential Treatment Programs, changing jobs, new old name... 

I honestly don't know how I made it out alive.

But here I am, alive and well.

More grey hair than a decade ago.

Healthier in many ways than I was a decade ago.

Ok, parts of my body are literally falling apart and in need of replacement, but that aside...

So with all the change, did anything stay the same?

Yes.

Resoundingly, yes.

My own inner strength and stability.

God in my corner.

Children and animals all around me.

My own unique, creative perspective.  It is mine alone.  Everyone has their own, I get to claim mine and I will be forever grateful for it.

Hope.

Love.

This time ten years from now, I will be on the cusp of 65.  

An empty-nester (except for maybe Bella?).

Retired (in the name of all that is good and holy, please). 

By the grace of God, still in my beautiful home, petting the ears of a dog as I sit by the fire (as I am at the moment), gathering eggs, and enjoying creative pursuits. Only not all at the same time.

As long as my things-that-stay-the-same list.... you know.... stays the same, I can weather whatever the twenty-twenties throw at me.  I've seen worse.

So bring it.