2012: It could have been worse

I sit here this early morning not as happy as I have felt in new year’s past. I ended 2012 more in debt than I have been in a decade, having taken on student loans in pursuit of my master’s degree. My mother died on October 26th. My husband is still disabled and still unemployed, and I ended the year with a cold/flu/who-knows-what that lasted two weeks. I made less money than in the previous nine years. Yet… my husband and I are still together, and our love is one year longer, deeper, and stronger. I completed all the courses for my master’s degree. I taught at Phoenix College again for the first time since 2005. I presented at the Registry of Interpreters for the Deaf Region V conference for the second time and I presented at the Conference of Interpreter Trainers for the first time. I traveled to Minneapolis to teach workshops. I took another cruise and visited New York again. Although my mom is dead, I still have my dad, and my husband Andy & I still have our two dogs and a new member of our family, my mom’s cat Callie. We re-elected Barak Obama. Still… we’ve fallen off the fiscal cliff. More lunatics are arming themselves with military grade weapons and killing innocent people, including children. Senseless wars still rage around the world. Global warming is causing more natural disasters. Okay, stop me now. Point is, 2012 was not my favorite year, but it could have been worse.