It is funny how fast the years seem to slip by as one gets older. When you are 4 years old, why a year is a quarter of your life! When you are younger, and something horrible happens, you have no idea just how you are going to EVER get past it...and yet you do.
And when you live long enough, you realize that events in life come in cycles. There will be good times and not so good of times. The good times give us hope and the strength to survive the bad times. To quote my dad, "You know, Barbie, ....it is kinda like a battery! You've got your positive and you've got your negative." Boy, how I used to hate it when he would say that! He was just boiling life down to the simplest of things....and sometimes my life didn't feel all that simple! "No, dad, life isn't like a battery! Sometimes it is complicated and so complex!" But, guess what! My dad was right! (Dad are you listening?) He knew then what I have come to appreciate as true. And, if you don't have both positive and negative in a battery, you have "no juice"! That energy or life just won't exist.
So, what things added to the positive and the negative of 2009 for me? A year is made up of so many moments. Professionally, I had some amazingly inspirational things happen. A couple that stick out are landing the corporate account that topped off my year with a sale of 235 bags in one order and pushed my total sales above my goal! Also, being 300 miles from home and having a woman come up and say, "Where did you get your Sasaki Bag?" That was cool!
But this year, the best and worst for me were personal, not professional. As most of you know, I live in Hawaii and my family does not. I don't often get to see or hug my kids, parents or siblings. But this year, in April my "baby girl" flew out here. That was truly the best thing of 2009. It was the highlight of my year! She moved away from home right after graduating high school and went off to explore the world. She finished growing into the woman she is, while away from me so at times I still marvel that she is no longer a kid. She is an amazing, beautiful woman!
The worst thing to happen to me in '09 had to be the diagnosis of skin cancer. Not so much the cancer itself, but what it may mean for me in the future. You see, I rarely share this with anyone, but I still have an outside job. I have worked at this separate employment for 13 years. This year, I worked so hard on building Sasaki Bags so that I could possibly quit my other job in the future and just solely work for myself. But when I got this dx, I guess I felt like my dreams were being sucked away....right into this hole in my leg. How can I quit my other job and give up my insurance benefits? How can I keep up this pace of working two full-time jobs and not collapse? It really made me feel sad. Before the dx, I knew that there would be an end in sight. Now...I can't see that.
So that is my best and worst of 2009. Somehow, putting it in writing makes it all sound....so simple....."kinda like a battery". (I love you, Dad!)
a hui hou
1 comment:
I was really hopeing I would make your list (made me cry). My best of 2009 was seeing you in April, and my worst was saying good-by to you. Broke my heart.
Oddly enough, as I was thinking about best and worsts during the year I realized a lot of them went together. Having Mimi help me sew a blouse was a highlight, and sewing that !@#$ blouse nearly drove me crazy. Finding (and keeping) a stray kitten was a positive and my stredded leather couch was a negative. Increased workload, negative. Job security, positive(ish).
Anywho, I read your blog everytime you post. You write as beautifully and effortlessly as you smile. You are a bright shinning light and by your very nature you are destined to live your dreams. Don't give up. You still have me and Obama, after all!
:)
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