See You On The Flip Side

2024, I’d like to say it was a good one, but honestly, I can’t wait to see you go.

It started out great.   Ringing in the new year with friends and enjoying fun and frivolity.   We went to the Dominican in January and came home to celebrate a Chiefs Super Bowl win.    

That’s about when it came to a screeching halt.

March 19 I lost the love of my life and from there it’s been an uphill battle.   

I have had to deal with so much more than I ever considered a possibility on that New Years Eve last year.   I have grown, and cried, and shrunk, and laughed, and suffered incomprehensible loss.   I have watched my kids suffer, and in spite of it all, thrive.

I had surgery on my eyes, I traveled the world.   I cried.   I laughed, I grew, and I survived.

I’d like to think that 2025 will be easier, but I am approaching this year with an air of suspicion.   I don’t trust that things will just “be okay” anymore.   

But I also approach it with hope.   I hope for more joy than sorrow.   I hope for more smiles than tears.   I hope to grow more and learn more and find more ways to survive this life I have been given.  

I miss Jason so very much, but as I have said before, he wouldn’t want me to live my life in pain.   

So this year I plan more travel, more family time, more work on my personal health, and to continue to find ways to move forward when the world seems hopeless.   

I will live every day knowing that time is not guaranteed, and that the life we are given is a gift.   My time with him was a gift, and the life I have without him is as well. 

I officially met Jason on New Years Day 1999.   26 years ago.   He gave me a life I cherish and a family I love.   I have countless memories of New Years Eve’s past.   “Y2Kia” and “Don’t Burn the Galant!”  (If you know, you know.  Haha).   Sometimes he was in bed at 8, and sometimes he made it to midnight.    But New Years is always a special time in my memories with him.

So 2024, I bid you farewell with a flip of my finger and a loving “fuck off.”   2025, I am looking forward to a happier time.   I’d like a year I can flourish in and move forward with a little less pain.   

I wish this for you all.   Enjoy every minute.   Time is a thief and the world isn’t always fair, but I have come out of this year knowing there is always good.   I have amazing friends, and amazing family.   I have found support and joy and people to hold me while I am sad.    I have my children who are thriving, and my dogs who snuggle me.   I have a home, stability, and adventures to take. 

In 2024, I learned.   In 2025, I will thrive.

Happy New Year to you all.   I’ll see you on the flip side.