Shaken, but not stirred in 2024

We all seem to take a seat at the end of the year like we are all waiting in the dark theater for some allusive closure on the ‘what was’, followed by a few hope-filled previews into the ‘what will be’. This end of year review for me has always seemed to start with the ‘if onlys’ remembering certain regrets. What did I do wrong? What could I have done better? What did I learn for this challenge or that struggle?

With a sharp intake of air like hitting ice water in the lake, I started 2024 wondering where I was going, unsure of almost every detail of my life, because I had walked away from ‘my life’ to straddle the future, the past, and the present listening to music I couldn’t quite hear: https://youtu.be/Dyheq5S1-GE?feature=shared&t=10 . When I stumbled across the challenge today, “The Soundtrack of Your Year”, it sought me to have a seat and ask delicately what that soundtrack might be for me while carrying the thought, “What a great way to reflect!”

In that reflection, I know that there is still hope to share no matter how dark it is! So often, so much, of what we live is exactly like some catchy tune that gets caught in the webs of the mind, repeating itself without rest. How much time has been wasted on a single conversation by someone who can’t even remember your name because they did something, or said something, carelessly or intentionally, that knocked the wind out of you for a brief moment along your timeline? Somehow time and reflection find that one instant that scratched a rut into your internal record and you cannot quite get out of it. Here I am with you if that is the case.

And this challenge, then, was an appropriate and opportune way for me to end the year feeling the sorrow of what was, while ushering in the hope of new life of what can be. Through the ravages of 2024 on a personal level, the one song that kept time, returning some reminding hope that I so desperately needed most, was “God is in This Story” by Big Daddy Weave and Katy Nicole https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkxu7Pqvcgj9v1REcFH-n-1vjDhx-mpAHPS?feature=shared . And, yes, while ravages might be too strong of a word to use in view of others’ situations, we can only truly compare our pain to our own pain.

We can only speak from our own experiences and knowledge. And I know that right now I feel beat up by this past year, not upbeat at the new one dawning, especially because I am sitting here in literal stitches. As I seek to be brave, it is not a humorous thing that I was instructed to remove them myself, with the back-up orders nearby: If I am a coward or unable, I can seek assistance. They are the last shadows of minor cancer surgery, which have joined other shadows from this year highlighting some painful events, which will eventually scar, emblazoning a badge solidifying the reminder: I beat cancer this year.

Oddly enough, the cutting out and healing was pain free, and for that I am thankful. But the shots that began an hour procedure were traumatic. 3-5 syringes necessary for some became over 12 for me. Even then, I felt the last few stitches going in after the cursing of cancer was cut out. Genetics gave my family that gift and that curse of high tolerance to certain medications. For now, there are no more shots to focus upon, just the idea of cutting and pulling stitches myself, adding to the distress of the past year.

There will be no deadening factor. I can’t be numb https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxYjyhh3EO4GS0ov9HnsVGP9qRN05nxny1?feature=shared as I am forced to listen to the recorded litany of other ‘don’t s’ that have plagued me this year much those hidden in the examples of: Be kind, but don’t care. Be honest, but don’t speak the truth. Speak, but don’t use words. Healing will be completed at some point marking the end of one short term paper published in 2024. Likewise, the stitches will be removed at some point too but may not happen for some time even yet.

On the eve of another year I am left, as others are, in contemplation of the past year’s claim to fame, re-reading the pages that were the most worn and torn. “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen actually https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxP5lEseRKLn4OP48T0gLnO3TNvpoG56Il?feature=shared jumped to the top of the stack of potential winners as the first song in my mind’s ears spawned by the many varieties and explosive sounds found in the dance music of 70s/80s rock and roll bands. It is certainly representative of the year of transition and change that started with bright red, burning and itching psoriasis in January that covered over 30% of my body.

I left my family in 2023 to travel across the country, wishing I could take time in a bottle as others questioned my sanity, https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxkqVDxao5NA8zAOg6Gn3tvOY7d5N8MbJa?feature=shared , to take a post at a national park with the rude awakening of something akin to ice water in the face from transitions, health issues, inflicted politics, and even death. The two deer breaking my fenders early on may have been an omen of things to come that were yet to break my heart. But my assigned mission was bigger than any of my brokenness.

I was following God’s leading, and my mission was bigger than just picking up the pieces of my own ‘shatterings’. I was an aging creation: who stood sentry over my even more greatly aging parents; who created and remodeled a humble house into a successful Bed and Breakfast; who attempted to learn a new job; and who observed my family from a few thousand miles away occasionally visiting like a distant grandmother on holiday. I felt the ravages of a time of change and I knew the roaring sounds of https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx2HBg-zFgTetsc6NV7JML7P-giX-9qNiB?feature=shared .

In July, my mother died. In August, my father-in-law died. In September, my main national park job died while I began taking a medicine for a heart challenge. In October, I received confirmation that the sudden growth of a mole was cancer. December brought the death of a nephew long plagued by Heroin addiction. I for one am quite ready for 2024 to bite the dust as well leaving life to bud again with the spring soon to arrive as it always does according to the seasons. Yes, I’m ready to be free of 2024 and midnight can’t come soon enough.

In the still of the night or the trumpeting of the day, the one voice that rang through all of the noise that banged at my door in 2024, that rose above all of the negativity real or imagined, was the voice that came with the quietness of the gentleman Creator promising breath to continue like reminders found in ‘Breathe’. Just breathe it says: https://youtube.com/clip/Ugkx4dJev0ySp5UYs6jlKEnd5SyFlnnVIJn1?feature=shared .

And so in the conclusion of this year, https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxlTc8WwL76VGps1diFbGcXGBtYryJAwI7?feature=shared go have a safe and happy new year. Go find your people in 2025, near or far: the people that will tell you the truth and yet demand nothing of you; that will wish you only the best while standing by your side through the good, the bad and the ugly days that we all share our lives with one day at a time. May 2025 find no sorrow knocking on your door. May it find you healed and whole: May it find you in Shalom, in peace with nothing broken, nothing missing.