Farewell, 2011. You were wonderful. You were weird.

I won't be sorry to see the end of 2011. Not that it's been a bad year; in fact, it's been a pretty great one. But lately, there's been a lot of awful things happening to those around me. Illness, accidents and some pretty grim tragedies. It's impossible not to feel the accumulated sadness of so many terrible circumstances.  Seeing friends and family suffer takes a toll, even if you're just trying to share the burden. It also reminds me that despite having had such good fortune over the years, anything can change in an instant. I know it all too well, but it's easy to forget, easy to get comfortable, easy to take things for granted.

So we've all been under a cloud of late.  There's something sinister hanging in the air that's hard to define; not just sadness or exhaustion, but anxiety for a potential threat lurking around the corner.  What's next? Who's got cancer this time? When's Grandma going back to the hospital? We can't relax when the atmosphere feels so charged with menace. It might turn out to be nothing, but you don't really want to find out. And it's not just me. Everyone I talk to seems to feel the same sense of unease. Even if things aren't bad, they're weird. Just a few degrees off. 

Everyone's hoping the turn of the clock will help clear the air, as it usually does. Though I have very mixed feelings about 2011, they're easily surpassed by my hopes and plans for 2012. There's amazing things on deck for the new year. I hope the cluster of sickness and tragedy remains firmly in the calendar we're about to close.