The week is going on, the year is nearly gone...there are few years of my adult life that I will be so glad to see go away as 2004. This time last year my son had a concussion, I was very sick, and my father was dying. Last January my father died. Dan was uncaring about it, and that hurt me unspeakably. In April we had to clean out my father's house and I got very sick from a tick bite I got down in Arkansas -- not to mention how awful going through the house was. Then Dan started getting those debilitating headaches and turned out to have uncontrolled blood pressure last summer. I got sick again from an ear infection in September. And then Stevie got so sick from that staph infection and Bill got hurt and was on crutches this fall. After a month of remission, Stevie is now back on heavy duty antibiotics and leg soaks as I type. And tonight I told someone whom I have considered to be a good friend for more than two years that I no longer want to be friends, and want contact cut off. While he is a good and fine man in many ways, and I will always be glad to have known him, he has recently shown himself capable of a casual and thoughtless cruelty that I cannot live with in a friend. It hurt to drop a friend -- but not as much as I expected it to. And most certainly not as much as my father getting sick and dying, or my sons being sick or hurt. It was the right thing to do for myself. As much as I will miss my funny, charming friend, I will be happier in the long run for having done this.

You know, I'm getting used to the shock and grief thing. First reaction -- what the heck?? Then great anger (how can this be happening to my child? My father? My marriage? Me?). Then the numbness comes. I spend a day or two (or in the case of my father's death a month or two) where I don't eat or drink or talk unless someone hands me the food, the drink, or nags at me until I speak. And then the acceptance, finally. With occasional flare-ups of the other things every now and then, for months after.

But as much as it was a horrible year, there was also great beauty and moments of joy in it. While I have had much grief and sadness, there was also much happiness. Meeting my friends in New Mexico and sharing time with them at the Grand Canyon and Canyon de Chelly was wonderful. Any time I spent with my children was time to cherish. Sunrise over the Canyon. Snow on the pines. The sun shining on Pike's Peak. The wildflowers on the prairie. The Christmas lights shining through the snow. The world is filled with beauty, and working in a hospital shows me stunning amounts of kindness and love every day. And surprisingly, as much as I dreaded spending that much time with Dan as we spent together on our trip out West, he was kind and thoughtful for most of it. And while I think that our marriage is beyond repair after last January, and we gave each other permission to see other people if we wish last fall, he has also been asking for a reconciliation -- and he has taken most of the responsibility for the mess things are in, and promises to do better, and be a  better husband if I give him the chance. That he is so sorry for having hurt me so much, and is willing to do anything to break down the big wall of ice between us. And most amazingly for him, he hasn't been nagging, badgering, or yelling. He quietly and humbly asks, which makes me think that he means it. Monday was our nineteenth wedding anniversary, if you can still call it that under the circumstances, and he humbly asked once again to try to work things out...

Tonight I told my friends that I was going to meet in New York that I am not going, and cancelled my hotel reservations. I will eat the cost of the train tickets, but they were very cheap, so it is no great import. In part I did this because the friend I decided to drop is one of the people who will be going, and I do not want things to be awkward for him.That is the reason that the involved people know about. But there was another reason -- a reason none of the other people involved know. And that reason turned out to be the right reason -- and perhaps the best thing I have done in a very long time indeed. I called home and told Dan I wasn't going to New York and he freaked out, because he knows how much it meant to me. He asked why, and I asked him if he truly wanted to try to work things out, and he said yes. I told him he would have his wife at home with him for a week, and that perhaps we can work on our relationship. It was one of only a couple of real conversations we have had since my father's death, and I sat at work crying, and it sounded like he was crying on his cell phone. I do not know what will happen, or if anything can be fixed, but I know that I did the right thing, for myself, for him, and most of all, for our beloved children, who deserve better than the iciness and unhappiness and  endless emotional strain of this house in the past year. It is time for this weird and painful limbo to end, one way or the other.

In fact, Dan said tonight he was happy that I was upset and crying because I have been holding in far too much anger, grief, and sorrow for much too long, and that he felt I needed a great catharsis. He said that now everything has begun to come out, his greatest fear is that I will bottle everything up again...

So anyway, the last few days has brought on a lot of soul searching and a lot of thinking. As usual, I am confused and I have no idea of what I am doing. But I can live with the decisions that I made today.I think somewhere down the road I will be very happy, in fact, for having made them. And I had a long talk with Bill the other day about life in general and came up with a few guidelines for life that I try to live by:

* You usually can't go wrong with gentleness, compassion, and mercy.

* If someone hurts you badly, you probably shouldn't try to work things out with them until you can deal with them rationally and compassionately. Sometimes that can take a while, but if you are upset you should wait if you can. Otherwise you might be the one to cause unnecesary pain, and perhaps lose a friend, or someone dear to you, as a result.

* People are going to hurt you. This is a part of life. Deal with it and forgive them as best as you can. Most of the time when they hurt you, it won't be intentional, it will be the result of something they didn't fully think through, or they are just having a bad day -- or any one of a great number of other such factors. But when you do find someone who does intentionally hurt you or others -- or who is incapable of seeing that his/her actions are wrong, and causes needless pain to other people -- or someone who knowingly uses other people-- its OK to drop that person from your life -- even if its a family member. You must forgive that person as best you can for your own sake, so that you do not become lost in bitterness, but you do not have to subject yourself to likely further pain and/or abuse, either.

* If someone hurts you, whether intentionally or not, you do not have the right to hurt them in return.

* A lot of time people are confused about things, whether in their thoughts or their feelings. Sometimes this confusion can lead to inconsistent behavior, or to that person acting or speaking in ways that they usually do not, and may never use again. And sometimes and some days that confused person might be you. Tolerance and compassion and patience can help with situations like that.

* The best revenge is to go on, learn from your pain and the situation that caused it, move on in your life, and be happy.