{2014}

The nice thing about keeping a blog, as dorky or unnecessary or narcissistic as it might seem to some people, is that on the last day of every year, I have this little record to read of what I did and what went on. For nostalgic people like me, it's pretty sweet.

I did slightly worse this year than usual. I used to blog every single morning while I drank my coffee in my pjs, and I had thought that maybe my mornings wouldn't have to change that much when I had a kid around. Like, maybe he'll play quietly at my feet while I sip a mug of something and collect all of my rational, coherent thoughts about life and daily events onto a blank screen. 

a) rational, coherent? No.

b) play quietly at my feet? No.

c) huh? Oh, sorry, I may have just fallen asleep on my keyboard and woke to find Sullivan tearing pages out of a book that I shouldn't have left on the coffee table. C'est la vie. 

In any case, though I didn't write every single day, or even every single week, I did write. And to quote every single 90's-era family-friendly sitcom ever: that's all that really matters. Anyway. I've been going through the 2014 archives this morning, and it's been nice. It's a fun tradition. 

2014. What can I say? You were so weird. You were the weirdest year I've ever had. You were somehow also one of the most normal years I've ever had. And while that sounds like a contradiction, it's not at all. 

You were weird because you brought me a baby. He came 21 days into the year, a day before his due date, and that experience in itself was completely bizarre and unexpected and surreal in every possible way. When I try to imagine it, it seems just a tiny bit more vague and unrealistic than the dream I had a few nights ago where I jumped off my house, flapped my arms, and flew to Chicago. 

The difference is: I am not in Chicago. But sleeping in his crib in the next room over, there is a little boy named Sullivan with very blond hair like his mom and very brown eyes like his dad. He can walk and repeat sounds and yesterday he said his first real word. "Jump." (He said it while he was jumping, so I guess he even knows what it means. That, or he's been listening to too much Van Halen.)

But you were normal because having a baby and watching him grow is something that has been done before by at least five other people. Maybe that's the weirdest thing of all: how something so strange and magical and crazy and completely extraordinary can be so common. How you can tell someone about this experience that you've had that changed you so completely and which was so incredible to you and have them say, simply, "Me too." 

Weird and normal. 

That wasn't the only thing that happened this year though. When I look back at 2014 as a whole, Sullivan's is definitely the first picture that pops into my head (that's what happens when you hang out with someone almost 24/7/4/12), but there are others too. I picture Folk Fest, and Grandpa's wedding in Seattle, and Elise's graduation, and the Great Grilled Cheese Cook-Off, feeling creative and making things, spending a lot of time in the kitchen, and road trips to the farm. I think of the music that soundtracked the days, and the countless episodes of Boy Meets World and Family Matters I'd watch to help me fall asleep at night (sometimes you just need something familiar to shut your brain off, right?). 

All in all, 2014 was a good year. It was a hard one in a lot of ways, but hard in the good way, not hard in the pointless way. And it sped by faster than any other year I can remember. And it feels foggy and dreamy, like I was half asleep the whole time. I can't imagine why. Am I looking forward to 2015? Sure. Bring it on.