Gratitude

Happy Birthday, Abbygail!

Twelve years have passed in a blink of an eye. It still feels like only yesterday! Here’s to so many more, together! Photo courtesy, Priyanka Saggu To quote Sara Bareilles’, Orpheus … Don’t stop trying to find me here amidst the chaos Though I know it’s blinding, there’s a way out Say out loud We will not give up on love now, No fear, don’t you turn like Orpheus, just stay here...

goofing off near a canal, somewhere outside Keukenhof, in the Netherlands The last five years have been, to put it mildly, a bit trying. I lost my father, my brother, my clients1, and quite a bit of my sanity. I lost a lot of weight and then gained it all again. The career pivot is going slower than expected. I feel pettily jealous of the bright young minds I mentor, when they go on to accomplish great new things, while I am here, clawing the mud....

For the past twenty years, you’ve been the bane of my existence. I slept with the phone by the bedside, never knowing when Mummy would call, and one of us would have to come find you, and dig you out of the newest hole you dug for yourself. And none of those years have been harder, than the one where we were estranged for the past year. Two decades of picking up after you had taken their toll....

As is our wont, we spent the day gallivanting in a jungle and having an accident. And then crying for a while and then laughing about what a story it would be for the rest of our lives. Much like our marriage. We make the best stories, don’t we? And I am who I am, because of you. Eleven years, and it still feels like only yesterday. 1 I love you....

This post was first sent to my newsletter on December 19th, 2021. You really ought to subscribe :) image, courtesy The Toymaker’s Journal Lots of links in this letter, because there won’t be a work letter later, this month :) This one is all about, drum roll … Reading :) You know the drill. Click the headers to wander off to the original articles. Books I Read Last Month So Good They Can’t Ignore you, is a book I strangely keep coming back to....