Sweet 16

Happy blogaversary to me.  This little insignificant blog is 16 years old today.  I can hardly remember myself at 57, the age I would have been then, but I can remember something about how different my life was. When I started this blog I was concerned about the environment and the world that would be passed on to my grandchildren, who were small then; that has not changed.   When I re-ran the climate calculator today I was troubled to learn that, despite our electric cars, my climate footprint has slightly gone up instead of down, due largely to the size of our house and our distance from shopping areas.  But I am still concerned and still trying.  

Many things have changed since in the 16 years since my first post, although I have to read between the lines to recall some of it.  I was living in a little gray brick house, the first one I had owned solely in my own name, in St. Clair Shores, Michigan.  I owned another house of my own in between and now live in our marital home in Midland, about two hours north.  I was working full time then at a job that paid a lot more than I have now, but that I hated.   I was single and bitter and not even dating at the beginning, with a bad relationship in between, and now I am married to a man I love.  My daughter Ruth was living at home on and off when I started; now she has died.  So many of those earlier posts are in coded language, trying not to point fingers at the people who failed to support her, to the people who made life difficult for all of us.  So hesitant to state in writing some of the terrible challenges she faced or to acknowledge the pain and fear and hopelessness that formed a thread in my daily life.  So it has been 16 years, maybe like any 16 years for anyone, with pain and joy and gain and loss.   And probably also like anyone, there are a lot of things I would change, and a few things I wish I could go back to.  But there is a new little grandchild in my life now, and my beloved older Grands are on the cusp of college and adulthood, so there is much to look forward to.  Despite the sadness from the loss of my youngest child, my baby girl, I am in a better place on many levels than I was 16 years ago, and looking forward to seeing what the next 16 years will bring.