Such Great Heights.

Everything looks perfect from far away...  Come down now... Come down.

We missed the ball drop.  We were up and the kids were up, but somehow we missed it, busying ourselves with other activities.  It was 12:16 before we noticed that the year 2016 was upon us.  12:16 exactly.

And 2015, all of it, is behind us, isn't it?

I'm trying to remember how it even began: 2015.  Our babies turned 8 years old, not far into it, on the 14th.  It was a blur, really, after 2014.  It was a blur.  Didn't it go by so quickly?  Didn't it flash by?

Some days, I felt like I was going to die in 2015.  I remember that.  I remember wondering how I would survive it all.  Yet, here I am.  And my children are brighter and more clever.  And Sam is here, holding onto me... holding me, I mean.  He didn't let me disappear.

And the 2015 calendar, filled with notes for every day, will be put aside for something clean and empty of words like, "Brain Nausea," and "Bad day," and "PMDD," and "Numb," and maybe be filled with something else... at least less of that other stuff, and more of something else... Like, "A good day," and "Feeling better."
I realize that even when I wrote that I wasn't feeling so very much better, I was still feeling better than I was, for so many days in 2015... when the calendar was filled with notes of symptoms and darkness and emptiness.  I am feeling more like myself, whether it's what I want it to be--which is "ALL BETTER!  NO MORE BAD THINGS,"--it is still a sense of better... better than before...

I know I have to take each moment for what it is, and breathe it in, and hold onto it, and not forget.  I have to remember the good, and even remember the bad.  How else am I supposed to know what is good... good for me... if I don't remember what is bad for me?

Time marches on.  Time marches on.  Time marches on.  And we must stay in step and not try to float above it, or stand on a mountain, looking down, and thinking, "It can't touch me."

Everything touches us and changes us.  Everything and everyone we experience, change us.  Change is good. Change is good and proper.  Change is growth.  We learn from mistakes and heartache, and triumphs and beautiful encounters.

We learn to drive stick shift in a parking lot.  We learn not to hide our feet.  We learn when to try, and fight.  We learn to give everything we've got.  We learn to take risks.  We learn when to stop trying.

We come down.