2008: What was that all about?

What a crazy, mixed-up year 2008 was! In February I declared it would be The Year of Balance, and that proved prophetic. 2008 was a roller-coaster of intense stuff, but I think, sitting here contemplating it all of a piece on January 1, 2009, that I mostly held center. OK, so I'm still working on Scorpion pose and probably will be for a looooong time, but if I learned anything at all this year (and who am I kidding: I learned a lot) it's that practice doesn't make perfect. Practice IS perfect. When things are hard or challenging, just keep going, just keep working it.

Things that definitely sucked about this year, not necessarily in order of suckiness:
- the economy
- Alex getting cancer
- my sister Carla getting cancer
- Laurent having repeated tonsillitis, then a tonsillectomy
- Joe being in the emergency room for bike crashes more than once, including the spectacular Nov 1st run-in with a deer
- my job, most of the time
- my dad losing vision in his right eye (macular degeneration) and not being able to drive or read

Things that definitely did not suck and were really great this year:
- doings lots of yoga, especially with Laura and the whole Marin Anusara kula - awesome!
- seeing a red octopus on the beach at Bodega in January (what a beautiful weekend that was)
- going snowcamping at Lassen last February
- taking 6 total weeks of vacation, including 10 days in Oaxaca and 3 weeks in France and Italy, pretty sweet
- volunteering at WildCare for a few months
- getting the blissbug idea and working on it with Martine and Terence
- Laurent moving back to San Rafael, doing well in school and at work
- spending a weekend in SF with Marianne and Heather
- getting along with my parents
- writing lots, including starting the blog, and
- generally feeling super-connected and surrounded by really, truly great friends

Taken alone, the Suck List above would feel crushing, but when I shuffle it together with the Awesome List, it no longer feels so bad. In fact, even with all of the insane sucky shit that happened this year, the year was amazing -- crazy, but amazing. It's as though at the same rate that some things got bad, the good stuff just got so much better. And I mean SO much better.

I'm 85% clear on the theme for 2009, but am going to spend a little more time savoring the complexity and many deep satisfactions of the past year. Yes, it was hard, but damn, it was really good.