Merry Christmas Baby (album) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This year kicked my butt in a lot of huge ways but I hesitate to call 2012 a bad year. It was weird, challenging, and taxing, sure, but we were incredibly fortunate that everything bad that happened ultimately worked out for the best.
For instance…
When two of the people closest to me each got a scary medical diagnosis followed by scary surgery, both not only came out of it fine and made quick recoveries but also discovered the danger hadn’t been as bad as originally thought.
Or like when a family very close to us was going to be evicted from their home and we struggled to find them a new place to live in the same school district, their landlord changed their mind at the last instant and let them stay. And when this same family then had a house fire a few weeks later, the damage was confined to a small area, Â no one was hurt and ultimately it led to some changes that made the living situation better for everyone.
Or like when I had to miss several big career opportunities because of personal issues but then other things randomly came my way instead. Or had to put my writing career on hold for several month but unexpectedly sold a play anyway.
Like how I got whooping cough but it turned out to be a much milder case than it could have been since I’d gotten the vaccine. Or how Hurricane Sandy left my loved ones and myself completely untouched.
And, of course, how I spent most of the year physically ill enough that it impeded my ability to work/live but that was just because I was pregnant.
Oh… erm… about that.
I had a baby. A daughter to be specific. A little before Christmas. And I kept trying to come up with the right way to mention that I was expecting online but, well, here we are.
Of course, everyone in my NaNoWriMo area and anyone who attended my panel at eBay On Location or watched the video of said panel after the fact knew this already but I never officially made any announcement online so I know this is the first many readers are hearing about it. I know we live in this crazy over-share culture but, what can I say, that’s not how I prefer to exist online. But something very big has just happened in my life and I realize now that I couldn’t not mention it.
I set a lot of goals for 2012. There were a lot of things I hoped to accomplish in my career, my business, and my life. I wasn’t expecting 2012 to be total chaos. I didn’t exactly plan to be a parent by the end of the year either, though that was a very welcome surprise. While I would never call what I had a difficult pregnancy (seriously, some very scary stuff can happen), I didn’t exactly have the easiest time of it and all the physical and emotional turmoil that came along with it made this… challenging year all the more difficult.
Because while almost everything ultimately worked out for the best, we didn’t know that as it was happening and some things (such as the fact that I lost both of my grandmothers in the span of three months) can’t really “work out for the best” no matter how you spin it. Some stuff just sucks. And sometimes really great stuff, like a new life, happens right smack in the middle of that stuff that sucks. And that’s just how life is.
I think I wrote a play about this. Anyway…
Did I accomplish everything I’d hoped to in 2012? Not by a long shot. Am I, if I’m completely honest here, completely behind on some things to the point where I’m slightly panicked? Kinda. Do I know what life my career and, heck, my life is going to look like now that I’m a parent? Not even remotely. But that’s OK.
Or, rather, I’m trying to convince myself that that’s OK.
Because if there’s one thing to take away from 2012 it’s that life is at once short and unpredictable. That sometimes the worst can work out for the best and sometimes awful things happen to good people for no reason as evidenced by what happened in Sandy Hook or with Hurricane Sandy for starters. That all any of can do is the best with what we have in front of us right now and that’s all there is.
I don’t know how often I’ll have a chance to blog in the near future (you’ll notice that it took me over a month to get this post up) but I’ve got some posts planned for whenever I get the chance to write them up so hopefully I won’t be totally dark. I’m also very behind on email. I appreciate your patience while I figure out what the heck I’m doing.
In the meantime, whether your 2012 was the best or the worst, I wish you a wonderful new year!
Hillary DePiano is a playwright, fiction and non-fiction writer who loves writing of all kinds except for writing bios like this.
