2015 Revisited

2015 was a roller coaster of a year, with some great stuff mixed in with some bad stuff and a huge amount of stress.

The year opened with my Mom’s health in decline. The holidays were stressful with worry about her, and probably even worse for my sister who was her health care proxy. While there were periods of hope that she would stabilize, she never really did, and went on hospice care in early February, and passing away in early March. We held a memorial service for her in late May.

This is the first time I’ve lost someone this close to me, and I still have a lot of feelings and memories that I’m working through, especially regarding these last few years since she moved into assisted living. It’s a process.

At the other end of the spectrum, Debbi and I got married in April! After 14 years together we decided it was time, and we had a great small ceremony at the county clerk’s office, followed by dinner with our friends, and Debbi’s sisters flew in for the day to join us. We also used it as an excuse to take a mini-honeymoon to Monterey Bay in July, and a longer trip which we called our honeymoon to Walt Disney World in November (as well as visiting Debbi’s parents).

The cognitive dissonance of getting married while dealing with my mother’s passing was occasionally difficult to reconcile in my head, but it worked out smoothly in the end, and we’re having a good time together. Of course, we had a good time before, which I guess is why we did it!

I’ve been the executor of Mom’s estate, which has taken a bunch of time this year, coordinating filing with life insurance, tracking people down, working with an attorney to file the estate and pay taxes, and all the work that goes into that. I think probably more than half of the work is done now, and most of the rest will play out over this coming year.

Last summer I decided I needed to add more exercise to my routine, so in July I started running, and I’ve kept up with it through the end of the year. I started running a mile per day, and now I’m up to 2-1/2 miles 4-to-5 days a week. I’ve lost about 10 pounds since I started, though my stretch goal of about 13 did not get met. But so far so good. Listening to podcasts keeps me motivated and occupied while running, and some days I even look forward to it. My plan is to get to 3 miles and do that on a regular basis. It’s really more about sticking with it than getting a lot better at it – I don’t plan to run any marathons.

In August, something I never got around to writing about here: I traded in my trusty 2000 Honda Civic and its 137,000 miles for a new Volkswagen Eos hard-top convertible. I’d been thinking of getting a more “fun” car for a while, and 2015 was the last year for the Eos, so I decided to treat myself (with a little urging from Debbi, who knew I’d been putting it off for a while). It’s been a great little car so far – and no, it doesn’t have one of VW’s questionable diesel engines!

After Disney World we had a quiet rest of the year, with time off around Thanksgiving and Christmas, and mostly just hanging out and taking care of stuff around the house. Oh, and finishing up the paperwork for my Mom’s estate’s tax filing. Debbi and I did get out for a few things, though: We made trips to Half Moon Bay and San Francisco; had dinner with a new cow-orker of mine and his wife (recently transplanted from the midwest); visited my cousins who were hosting their parents, whom I hadn’t seen in over 20 years; and we upgraded our A/V system by adding a TiVo (which has been great, other than the expected hassle of enabling the Comcast cable card).

I am not one for making New Year’s resolutions, and I’ve been joking that I started mine back in July. But this year I would like to write more regular journal entries, maybe write some fiction, and ma-a-aybe get back to drawing (must resist buying iPad Pro for drawing I haven’t actually been doing). We’ll see. Mostly I’m just hoping that with most of the stress and hassle of handling my mother’s affairs behind me that I can clear my head of worrying about that and do things I enjoy without wondering if there’s Something Important I need to be doing instead.

And of course having Debbi along for things that we both enjoy, too!