Into the New Year

Ah, my Dear Reader, how I have missed you. It's been 8 months since you left this water world for another, hopefully better, place. As 2016 ended, a terrible year indeed, I looked back on my losses and gains. Your friendship was only one thing I lost.

http://theloraxswife.blogspot.com/2016/06/my-dear-reader.html

Because you no longer read my posts and tease me about them I have less reason to write. But, also due to your teasing, I created a hat style for kayakers, just as you requested. I regret that I cannot hand you one when the Usual Suspects gather for a downwinder.

I think I would have made yours in blue.

I also lost my girl Kona. My queen bee. I may never fully convince myself that I couldn't have saved her. Her loss followed your death by a month. She loved me and I could not save her.

While I made gains of a business kind, I am still finding that I look back on 2016 as an annus horribilis.

I hope 2017 will be better. But having lost two friends back to back, I am thinking that it will only get tougher from here. I hope I find some core of hardness inside myself, to propel myself onward. It will be a tough year. There are things ahead that are frightening, and exciting. It is time to climb up, over, and out.