Happy 2012!

01-01-2012.

I'm feeling nostalgic.
So I did it.

I looked at the pictures from last New Year's Eve.

NYE 2010

What a difference a year makes!  Can you believe it?  It's impossible for me to believe.
And yet...yet, it's like he's been standing here all along.

And as hard as it is to look at those pictures and to realize he's gone.  It's just as incredible to look at pictures of Eleanor and see a little baby.  Now I have a girl.  A kid.

So what does 2012 have to offer?  I feel like anything has to be better than 2011...but in the same breath, I acknowledge that I won't have Nic for any part of 2012.  At least he was there in 2011.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm in a good place.  About as great of a place as one can be, having lost her husband at age 30.  It has completely altered who I was.  And who I want to be.

And if I have just one resolution for 2012...it's to embrace the new me that I am.  I can't want for things to be the way they were.  They never will be.  I can't want to feel like I did before.  Because I never will.  I can't want for normal.  To feel normal.  Because there is a new normal.  I can't wish to not be a "widow".  To not grieve.  Because I am and I do.  And I always will be and I always will.

I have a few tough months coming.  So while the new year is great and all...I feel like I can't really resolve, or whatever, until I make it through MY year.  Until I can't look back anymore and say, "A year ago this" or "a year ago that".

So while I threw up confetti last night and blew my horn.  I'm not really in a new year yet.  I'm still constrained by "My first year as a widow".  My first year without my husband.

So maybe I look forward to February 22 more.  Maybe, that night, at midnight, I throw confetti in the air and blow my horn and look forward to the future.  Maybe that night, I drink champagne and think about all the amazing accomplishments of the year.

Oops.  This entry took an odd twist.  But...that's life, right?  That's what it does.  Odd twists and we just keep going with the flow.  And...dang it...it's my blog and it is what it is.  And, I guess, this is my New Year's post.

So, Happy New Year.  And ::Cheers:: to a new year...but I'm just going to tiptoe into this new year. For now...