The truth is there are many years that when you look back on your life--you just don’t remember them.  Sure, maybe you did something special that year, like the years Robyn and I went on our multi-state vacation or the year I finally got my Bachelor’s degree.  But those are events.  I don’t recall them because of the year, and chances are that as I get older it may take me a while to remember exactly what year they occurred in...if I remember at all. 

If I remember a year it’s because of something monumental.  Sometimes it’s good (births of my daughters), but more often it’s because of something bad (1992 and my Summer of Hell; 2007, when we lost Dane).  I definitely know that 2011 is one of those years I will remember, but I can’t say honestly if I will look back at it as a bad year.  It certainly has a lot in common with my Summer of Hell year (wife leaving me, financial trouble, poor decisions--I didn’t have the week in the hospital I had then, but I did get a divorce out of the way).  But in 1992 I was devastated (I was also young and did not realize then that my wife leaving me was a very good thing).  This year, devastation lasted maybe a week.  It was a long time coming, and I just wasn’t the person who finally made it happen--I would thank her for it if she hadn’t done it in the worst way possible.

I don’t know if my poor decision making this year was as bad as it was in 1992.  Then, I agreed to go out with a friend of my sister, a decision I almost instantly regretted, but something which I was not able to extricate myself from for months (I have never been one who has been able to end things).  My experience with her should have warned me never to date a friend of my sister, but it took one more try for that to sink in.  I started to date somebody about six weeks after my ex left--we just had a timing issue, though, and never were really able to get together, which was okay, as I realized I just wasn’t ready for a relationship at the time.  That started a little two-month phase in which I apparently earned the title of manwhore.  I don’t think it was warranted, and I certainly don’t think it could be used for somebody to alleviate their guilt of earlier actions, but it was what it was.  I needed to go through that to realize that it wasn’t me and what I really wanted...and what I really deserved.  Once I married somebody before we really were ready for it (although her life after proved she was never ready for being a parent), and once I married a person for who she could be rather than who she actually was, and she never became that person she could be. 

So 2011 is the year my second marriage ended.  It’s also hopefully the year I found a true love, somebody who I am in love with for who she is now, rather than what I think she could be.  I have good feelings about it, and I hope I’m not writing something next year about how she dumped me, thinking I’m a huge douchebag.

I don’t do good with resolutions (looking at last years, I think I need to read about 30 books by tonight to reach my goal), but I will write something tomorrow about goals for next year.