Day 227...Happy New Year

*warning: long post to follow*

This year has been extraordinary.

This year has been painful and heartbreaking.

This year has been enlightening .

This year has unearthed hidden treasure within our family.

I feel blessed and content and excited to be writing a new and better story for our family.

I've gone to write this post about four times, and I ultimately pecked that backspace key to death over and over again.  It felt cliché’…perhaps inadequate every time. Because there's just so much.

And it's not just that this "big" thing happened to us. Angelman Syndrome is nothing compared to other defining moments that shift the worlds of so many. People all over have had much more dramatic jolting moments of truth that began beautiful stories.

It's more than that.

And I don't even really know what it is.

But this year, I have uprooted the deepest beliefs within me. I have questioned everything. I have spent hours thinking in the shower, driving in the car, lying in bed at night while everyone else sleeps. I have pushed myself to be more, to see more, to do more…for my family and kids…and for that I will be forever grateful for that push.

And I guess where I landed is not exactly in a world of answers but in a world of good questions. Questioning is good. It draws the best from us. It calls us to action. And somewhere, amid the action, I've realized the answers aren't even important anymore. Because where we are feels good. I am learning. I am striving to be more. I am loving, and that alone makes me happy.

Our world was a bit shaken this year, but slowly, it rebuilt. Strong and mighty.

And I am grateful for all the amazing mintues this year gave me. All 525,600 of them.

Oh, it was a good year…

And I know the New Year has so much to offer.  More learning, more growing, more opportunity to rise to the occasion.

Happy New Year. Wrap up all the richness of this year, tuck it away and embrace the amazing potential of this next year.