My Year

Last week at this time I was putting together a beef stew supper and a bag of treats for Mr. Mike for Halloween and thinking about Halloween of last year and about just how much my life has changed--or how much I have changed my life--in the past twelve months. Halloween 2006 saw me working noon-nine pm at a job I hated, missing both a family dinner that day and the chance to see my little nephew in his scarecrow costume that evening. The misery I felt all day last Halloween was the same that colored so many of my days last year. But last Wednesday, in a new apartment in a new city on a day off from a new job and baking peanut butter cookies for Mr. Mike, I was overwhelmed by how happy I was and by just how dramatically I've changed my life in one year's time. Mom called while I was scrambling to get the Halloween show on the road here, and in the cozy glow of apple cinnamon and pumpkin pie-scented candles, I sat down to tell her I was happy. She has been telling me every year for what seems like forever that "this will be [my] year," and finally, last week, with only sixty-two days left of what has been an awesome year, I could tell her that she was right. I am so happy, and for the first time in a long time, I've had months in a row of looking not backward but forward.