2011 In Review

I started out this year of eleven sure it was going to be a sad testament to an otherwise glorious number. In fact, if you had told me when the ball dropped to end the old year and welcome the year of eleven would be anything other than the worse year of my life, I felt I would have had an argument against your case. In sharp contrast, I'm the happiest I may have ever been. But before I end this post right there, here's a blow-by-blow of Sam's 2011...

• The year started out with my marriage of thirteen plus years ending. At that point I really couldn't see what life would look like without my wife, but I really couldn't see it being anything worthwhile. As almost everyone close to us saw it, it was more like a death than a divorce; so much grief with no real explanation. What a horrible way to start a new year.


• While the previous ten months had been bad enough, a few days before the annual Jamaican Party, I sat alone in front of a stereo speaker listening to a single song and crying my eyes out as I waited for my Ell to walk in the door that she would never walk through again. The devastation of realizing she was truly gone was the lowest of lows I had ever emotionally been in my life. It was the rock bottom I'd heard about in many psychological conversations, even though I couldn't see it at the time. By the time the night was over, all of my emotions, from good to bad and everything in between, were gone. I was blank.


• Two days later I held the fourteenth annual Jamaican Party. It was a starkly different party than all thirteen before it, and to this very day, I barely remember anything from that night except knowing it shouldn't have happened. Many tried to make it a good time, but it was somber at very best.


• After the emptying of hitting rock bottom, I got back into the dating game in the form of a hot, sassy, hundred pound blond girl eleven years my younger. The relationship was fast in every form of the word, and on the eve of St. Patrick's Day, turned out to be a little too fast. At four am, I left her drunk and naked on her bed, too much of a gentleman to follow through on the thing she was literally begging me do. It was not the best moment in my adult life, but it turned out to be exactly what I needed. This cute little blond wanted me just because I was me, and to the heart in my chest that had been so painfully rejected, that may as well have been an angel singing. It was truly a turning point for me.


• Over the next few months leading into summer, I began to realize what I had actually lost, when I had actually lost it, what I was actually missing, and where I had actually lost it. Despite still never having any kind of a real conversation with Ell about our failures, I accepted them. In stark contrast to all the pretending I'd been doing for so long, I finally became alright with what my life looked like as a single man. Before long, I had settled into a peace that was evident to all around me.


• As soon as that peace settled on my spirit, I set some new goals for myself including my health. Before the summer was over I had crossed the fifty pound mark in my weight loss and was still losing.


• September dawned with the event of the year, the Columbiana Street Fair. Friday night I decided to walk the Fair with a young lady I'd met a few months previous. That night turned into another night, and then a hike a few days later, then a dinner the next Friday, and then more and more and more. At a moment in my life where I was not looking for companionship of any kind, in walked a Lady that seemed to have been made especially for me by God himself. There's more to this relationship than could possibly fit into a whole post let alone a single bullet point, so I'll just say the relationship is still going strong and I'm as happy as I've ever been in any relationship in my life.


• In the ever-present goal of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, I sold my Log House in November and then held the, "Last Party in the Log House" two weeks later. It was a great time to celebrate memories and to allow my friends to leave their last mark (literally) on this page in my life.


• In December, my Lady decorated the most beautiful tree in the history of Christmas in the living room of my Log House. It was a beautiful moment only made better Christmas Eve as my Lady and I opened our presents under the glow of its lights and bulbs.

2011 turned out much different than I thought it would, and as much as anyone thinks they can guess what the future holds, I sit here in wondrous anticipation of what 2012 holds for me. I share a toast to all of you and wish you the best that life has to offer in this new year. Cheers and love to all of you.