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It's weird, because out in the world 2016 was really quite shitty, but inside my own personal little bubble it was actually a really good year. Definitely the best for me since 2009, by a mile.
And then I think, hang on--I had a cousin get stabbed in the neck and suffer permanent brain damage, I had another cousin commit suicide, I came to the realization that my brother will inevitably die early from alcohol or depression, I spent 2 hours a day for 3 months teaching my stepdaughter how to drive, we're spending so much money scaffolding her in her new life and we can't even use her college fund for it, I received hate mail from people I didn't even know... How is it that I have the impression that this was a good year for me? And yet it was.
I'm working with a guy right now, and he told me a story about how when he was young, he fell and broke his leg. And in the course of asking him about it, we realized that he remembers nothing of the pain, or the hospital, or being stuck inside for the rest of the winter, or the trapped nature of having a full-leg cast at a time when there was really no such thing as crutches for children. All he remembers is at school, someone had to carry him to class on their shoulders, and he felt like the king of the world. Breaking his leg is one of the fondest memories of his childhood.
I think there's something to that. I think we should try to be like him. I'm not as good at it as he is, for sure, but I'm trying.
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