Auld Lang Syne

What a difference a year can make.

I woke up last year on New Year’s Day and breathed a sigh of relief before my feet even hit the floor. 2013 was finally over. That bad boy had been nothing but disappointment and had left me and CH feeling like we’d been one too many rounds in a boxing match. We were so very, very happy to see it go.

As I sit here on this New Year’s Day and reflect on the last 365 days, I’m struggling to find the words to describe a year I had such anticipation for. The best I can come up with is ambivalent, which is probably only slightly better than the meh CH used as we watched the Times Square ball drop last night. The past year was certainly better than 2013—by leaps and bounds. But I don’t know that it was entirely what I had in mind. The first 7 months started off almost as poorly as the previous 12, with trials and disappointments and tears. The last 5 months were an amalgam of shock, happiness, excitement, bewilderment, frustration, fear, busyness, and overwhelment (which has led me to create a new word). The year 2014 was a whirlwind that I’m still trying to wrap my mind around.

But I don’t know that I’m going to spend too much time trying to process 2014. I think I’m going to accept it for what it was and focus on 2015, which will be an entirely new beast of its own. CH and I are about to enter the turbulent waters of first-time parenting and parenting multiples, and neither of us has a clue as to what we’re doing. But we have each other and a God who is bigger than anything we have faced and anything we will face.

I say, “Bring it.” CH says, “Here’s to one hell of a year.”