Every year I’ve done a recap of the year before. It just feels like something you are *supposed* to do at the end of the year – reflect. I reflect a lot, and I have a lot this year. I’d say a good 90% of the 2020 posts are me looking at where I have been, what I have done and that which is learned and still to be learned.

If I recall I would typically call this post In Memoriam. We are switching that up this year though. I find that fitting because I’ve switched a lot up in 2020, and plan to continue that trend.

This time in the year 2019 I had no way of understanding that 2020 would do that which it has, I think few if any had that figured out. I sure didn’t.

I would be about 4 weeks away from a weekend in Exton which would alter my trajectory. Ironic since I once thought my ‘home’ was going to be in Exton. I was sure that I wanted to be in a relationship, and if I recall I hadn’t yet been dropped with the OPP.

Christmas in Baltimore is something that I legit don’t recall as I type this. I can’t tell you what I did or what I ate. If I had to guess Lola tried to get me to do something and I politely declined. There is something that time traveling I would change. I would have come out to keep her from being lonely. I chuckle at that since she is currently someone I don’t even speak to at the moment. I am looking at the cell as I type this thinking, you can send her a message and know just how unlikely that is to happen.

2020 has shown me that the things which CAN happen are a plenty so I won’t assume that book is closed. If I can repair things with Tempest I can with Lola, after all I had a comparative disinterest in ‘fixing’ that relationship yet it is mostly there.

2020 gave me a return to the hometown and a new plan for what the second half of my life will look like.

It gave me the final acceptance that my Clyde is happy and safe and it’s okay to live without trying to right the wrongs done to us. There are still tears to be shed there and they will happen, but I am mostly good.

2020 at work was…..

Ironically I am in a similar place. I am fighting for the department lead, this time though I am not seeking the Arizona office. Another difference is the weight of getting it or not getting it I’ve assigned. I work in a different department now, and if department lead in the old department doesn’t happen I can be productive and happy in the new department without the pressure of will the relationship survive. Not just the intimate relationship, nope I will get to that, but the work relationship. I ‘almost’ quit that job a dozen times this year. I still recall the disrespect but I grew through it and who I am today is different than before. I got this.

I am in love.

That might be one of the biggest WTF of 2020.

Except not really.

As I look back at what we’ve experienced this year the fact we are this solid, this committed, this invested is not a surprise at all. This is both the most difficult and simplest relationship I’ve experienced.

What surprised me as the year moved along was how simple it was to rely on the process. At every moment when shit could have gone sideways we BOTH reverted to the process and saw our way through it. We have done what I didn’t think could be done and I am still in awe of it.

The Daddy person says a seismic shift is coming in 2021. I believe him and want it to be more than the San Andreas fault. We’ve proven many wrong and each other true in 2020.

In 2021 and beyond we form like Voltron – lol.

Seriously though. 2021 brings the proximity we’ve missed this year. Us in proximity is magical for lack of a better word on this Christmas afternoon.

and Nicole?

I am uterus free. I am a business owner. I am.

I spent a lot of time in 2020 asking if the changes were real. Asking if I could do it.

I have different questions for 2021. Different adventures.

Through all of what will come though, I get to stand on the foundation of 2020.

It’s been a LONG AS FUCK YEAR. It’s been amazing though in ways it hasn’t for others. I am grateful for that in ways I don’t have the ability to articulate. Instead I will just say thank you.

Constant Reader you’ve traveled this road with me for 10 years now. As we work on year 11 and beyond I appreciate your presence.