2018 in review

We celebrated little things. We read books. We went on adventures. In March, that meant on an airplane. We ate junk. Exhausted, we slept. We played. And partied. I traveled to Tampa and LA and Washington and Oregon and Colorado and Cancun. I walked or ran in all of those places, sometimes stopping to take pictures. My boys and I also went on lots of walks to parks. Apartment living. But my apartment did have a pool. The other place I traveled to was the middle of nowhere. We got a flat tire. We fixed it ourselves. After two years of work, after writing a thesis and preparing a lecture and giving a reading, I graduated with my MFA. The boys took swimming lessons. Still, neither can really swim. Some days I  looked at Brandon and saw not a little boy, but a young man. The boys every day became better friends than the last. For the second time, I ran Hood to Coast with my family. Holden still sucks his thumb, uses his blankie, and sits in the baby swings. I read some more. In 2018, I remembered what it is to work. I mean, I’ve never stopped working but I started working jobs that paid again, spent my early weekend mornings barista-ing. Evenings I spent working at the restaurant or with the kids. Mostly, Holden was naughty. Mostly, Brandon was nice. We moved into a new place and bought each other Christmas presents and decorated our tree and somehow, we managed our first year like this. My boys and I are feisty and stubborn together. There will be so many more years like this.