The year of despair

2009 had such great promise. We went into the year with our house newly on the market, with big plans to sell our house quickly, be in that Olympic-Manor-House by Valentines, and have a baby by September (twin girls, to be specific). It was going to be such a great year, we were going to live in a grown-up house, do grown-up things, and I'd finally get to quit my job, and life would be happily-ever-after (except for those 2am-feedings).



Funny how life so seldom does what you'd like it to...

I certainly hadn't planned to still have our house on the market nine months later at $100,000 less.

I didn't expect 8 months of infertility followed by a short-lived pregnancy and a lot of tears.

I didn't expect to get an offer on our house, find the perfect house, and then have the buyer back out.

I suppose I did kind of expect work to stay horrible, but I could have done without it nonetheless.

I most definitely didn't plan to spend the ENTIRE month of July sick on the couch (nor did I expect to watch the entire Tour de France, normal people don't have time for that sort of thing).



What did we do wrong? Was it too much to ask for things to go our way for a change? I understand (theoretically at least) that you can't barter with God, but what sort of horrible behavior was I making up for? If I was nicer to my sister, could we get a viable offer on our house? If I cut back on the brownies, would we finally get pregnant? I don't know.



I've never been one to put labels on years. With the exception of 2006, which was "the year we got married", I really don't distinguish one year from the other much. But I think that 2009 will go down in infamy as the year-of-despair. Never before have I been so happy to shut the door on a year and move on to the next.



But even with the worst year, there is always light in there somewhere. Thanks entirely to this crummy economy, we got to go on a cruise. I've been trying to finagle a way to go on another one ever since we got back from our honeymoon, but I'd been expecting I'd have to wait until our 10th or 20th anniversary before we could swing it again. That was a wonderful trip. And we did finally get to move, into a house that is so amazing it really does make the whole last year worthwhile. Oh yeah, and did I mention that I saw the entire Tour de France? And I cooked the most AMAZING Thanksgiving turkey. There's a silver lining in every cloud.



So, now, 2010 is the year of promise. We're in a grown-up house, maybe that grown-up life and baby are just around the corner.