The start of the hardest year...

When I think about the hardest year I think I have ever been through, my first thoughts are really of the first day of that year...

It was January 2001 and I had just returned from spending New Year's in Dallas with my cousin celebrating his 21st birthday. I haven't thought about that trip in a long time, and it wasn't really where I was going to go when I sat down to write this part. But, I guess that reflecting on the past brings about things a little at a time.

I remember being at Doug's house on New Year's eve with him and all his friends. We were drinking and partying and just having a blast. They were a fun bunch to be around. I remember looking out the window that night and seeing the snow falling, and I mean FALLING! We ran outside and they all began to have a snowball fight. What fun it was. I never would have thought then that we would be burrying Doug just 3 years later. He and I weren't that close, but close enough that I was beyond upset when he died. Pictures are all I have left now, I keep them tucked away in a box and I come across them every now and then. Oh Doug, how I hope you are doing well now. You are truly missed down here.

After the trip to Texas I came home to Connecticut to find out that a good friend of mine's father had passed away and we would be laying him to rest the following weekend. Steve's Dad was like a big cuddly teddy bear. I ended up at the bar the night before the funeral looking to dull the pain. It was the third funeral I would attend in just two years, numbers that were too big for a 21 year old. It was that night that I met Chet. He was just home from a six month deployment and neither of us were looking for a relationship. Little did we know that just a few short months later we would be engaged and then be married a year and a half later.

I haven't thought about how hard that year was for me. I also haven't thought about how that year changed my life so much. Why is it that good memories bring you around to bad ones, and those bring you around to good ones and so goes the circle over and over again?

I wish I could take them all and make them all good, and make the bad ones go away. But, I guess those are the ones that develop our character, the ones that teach us who we really are and the ones that mold us into who we will become.

I am trying to remember how it all went...