GREY MATTER LIFE

We closed the door on another year and suffice to say, 2011 was momentous.

Much of our lives were played out here in the blog. Open, raw, humorous and honest, I shared a lot.

72 posts were published in 2011 bringing the count of archive posts to 255. 255 posts taken from a Word document, backed up twice a day, that houses all of my personal and public writing about our journey. A journey spelled out thus far in nearly 90,000 words and over 300 pages.

I’ve spent a lot of time writing these past few years.  

I was a nearly anonymous patient and writer three years ago. I started typing one day and never stopped. Writing has brought peace, clarity and joy. It has brought tears, laughter, free therapy and has ultimately served as an instrument from where I’ve found balance.

I didn’t expect you all to read. Nor did I think anyone would take notice or interest in our journey, struggle, acceptance and embrace of my brain tumor. I didn’t expect that so many of you would reach out to me. I didn’t expect that what I shared here would speak to so many of you in so many different ways.

I didn’t expect that what I had to say or how I felt would matter to so many of you.

I wrote and you read. Thank you for your comments, for your support and for walking with us. It has been extraordinary.

I’m no longer that anonymous patient. We held our breath, opened up our lives to cameras and microphones and we shared. We honestly shared with the world what our journey has been like, how our lives have changed and why for so many reasons, my brain tumor has been one of our greatest blessings.

In doing so, 2011 marked a moment when my life, Paul’s life and the lives of my children became public domain. It has been a wild ride.

As we begin 2012, I look to the year ahead with my arms out. No longer adopting resolutions or writing epic bucket lists, I choose instead to meet each new year with hopes and dreams. I now take life one day and moment at a time. Our life and our years are best savored, appreciated and lived just like that. One at a time.     

I look forward to another year of capturing the ebb and flow of our emotional roller coaster and so much of what encompasses our life with that piece of shit tumor in words and photos.

I hope the transparency of our journey matters to you as much as it does to me.

As the sun rose this morning beckoning a new year, I inhaled deeply and greeted it with a simple wish. A wish for a year filled with as much or more laughter, chaos, happiness and continued brain tumor stability. A simple New Year wish.

May 2012 be filled with as much laughter as we closed 2011 with.