For the longest time, I would be standing at the present, and looking back at the way things were the previous year. I suppose it began when the really tough times began to hit, and I longed for that other time back, the time before I truly understood mortality and pain. Gradually, it transitioned that my thinking that life is so good and looking back to remind myself that things were really hard there for awhile. It was my affirmation that I am strong, that I can overcome, and that I will always survive.

But this is the last weird anniversary for me, the next several days—the last time I had to force myself to do something that scared the bejeezus out of me. A year ago today was my last day at one job, which I left for lack of benefits (A very timely move considering that medical emergency thing that popped up 6 weeks later). That night was Relay for Life and ABS Global, where my mother was employed, had a lane dedicated to her. I spent the next day packing up Miles' things, purging albums of the photographic memories we had had together. The day after that, I saw him to go over the divorce papers—the first time I had seen him since I returned home that October day to find him gone. The day after that, I stood before a judge and declared that my marriage was irreconcilably broken. And, the day after that, I began working at my current job.

Easily one of the most tumultuous five-day stretches in my life, it was a series of endings colliding with a series of beginnings...and it left me absolutely exhausted. I needed Mommy, and she didn't come when I called. I ended one life and stumbled upon the start line of the next. But I'll tell you, I started that next life and haven't looked back. It was something I needed to do but truly dreaded doing so...and, being that I forged through and all, perhaps Mom came running after all.

Sometimes I catch myself smiling for no reason and I take stock. It almost doesn't feel natural to be this far out from some sort of trial and at times I wonder when the other shoe will drop. It was one thing after another after another for so long that I truly believed what Aunt Brenda said at the center of our family crises: "We had too many good years." Well if that be the case, and we travel through phases of good, then bad instead of a constant balance, I'm standing at the entrance to some really great times.