Surviving Year Two: Week 21

2016 drawings from my art journal

This is Week 21 of my Surviving Year Two Grief Project. Details about all my Grief Projects, as well as Grief Resources can be found here.

Today is New Year's Eve. I have been thinking about where I was last year at this time — huddled in a freezing guest room in Santa Barbara, texting with an old boyfriend who was in a detox treatment center somewhere and also alone. As dysfunctional as that relationship has always been, that night I think we kept each other alive and I'll always be grateful to him for that. I was four months in to being a widow and so broken-hearted, I honestly did not think I would live through the year 2016.

And a new journal begins...

Tonight, I am happy to say that I am in a much better place. I plan to bring in 2017 by myself, in my little house, filled with candles and snuggly kittens. Synchronistically, I finished a journal just as 2016 was coming to a close. When I began it, my husband was alive, so this truly feels like a symbolic moment of change and transformation. Despite the horrors of the 2016 Presidential Election in America, I have great hopes for my personal journey of healing and transformation. I think big changes are headed my way and I feel ready for them.

When I finish an art journal, I like to take photos of some of my favorite drawings and pages (and if you follow me on Instagram, then you may even have seen some movies of all the pages of my journal). Today's image is a collage of drawings I have made in my journal over 2016. These drawings actually sum up my year in a very visceral way.

As I start my new journal with the new year, it seemed appropriate to return to an old practice of mine, using author, photographer and teacher Susannah Conway's "Unravel Your Year" workbook. Before my husband died, I used her workbook every year and while I missed 2016, it feels great to return to this practice.

I am wishing you peace, joy and new delightful adventures in the New Year. Let's get through it together.

Thank you for witnessing me. See you next week.