I Did It

    This year Life seems to be filled with milestones, large and small, sweet and painful, debilitating and healing. As the year progresses the milestones have turned far from the negative, and into the great and positive. I have written of many of the great moments; the birth of the Bright Bean, joining the fire department, weddings, physical triumphs, mental victories. In this, The Year of Win, there have been so many moments of triumph and joy, that I can look back at the long winter and the deep, cold abyss that nearly consumed me, and it feels like a fading dream. My journey to the abyss has become nothing more than a nocturnal aberration, fast disappearing in the morning sun. As I stride forward into my new dawn, new day, new beginning, I let past troubles fall away until they are nothing but dusty cobwebs of faint memories. It seems I find another moment of revelation, another personal victory, with the regularity of the moon. Some great and glorious, others small but filling me with pride. I have come so far in so short a time. As if I were held back as my life moved forward, pulling away, stretching into the future, then released with the suddenness of a catapult. Vaulted forward with eye-watering speed. Propelled with the pent up energies stored, held close to the heart, finally exploding forward in a rush that was not to be denied.
    Another milestone met and passed with ease this last weekend. One that had loomed over me, as a dark pillar, shadowing life. When faced it turned to nothing but ash. It crumbled before me, blown away on the winds of growth and change. It was a sweet moment, a conquest, a triumph, a delicious victory. I felt my own strength and power grow and swell as I faced the colossus and it revealed itself to be a hollow, fragile husk of insignificance. I was truly and deeply amazed at the ease in which this behemoth fell before me, with no aftershock, no painful backlash. I was amazed at my strength and stability.
    This last year has led me along dark pathways, through bleak tunnels, over massive obstacles, but I have come through the victor. Stronger, healthier, saner, stabler than ever before. I did it. Me. Myself. I did it. And I am proud.