Hasta Lavista, 2008

I keep seeing news articles today about how relieved everyone is to say adios to 2008. Harsh, unequivocal, "good riddance and don't let the door hit you on your way out" sort of sentiments. Understandable. On the macro-level, this year we've seen extreme violence, national disasters, the crash of the world economy. On the micro-level, it seems like everyone I know - myself included - had to encounter significant, often painful challenges, ranging from loved ones' deaths to health traumas, heartaches to unemployment and financial woes.

Before making any resolutions or talking about 2009 - that post will come tomorrow - I just want to acknowledge 2008. It's been a brutal, trying, testing year. I can't soften that for anyone with any platitudes. But to 2008, in the abstract, I say:

• You better have been trying to teach us something, somewhere along the way.
• I hope we learned those lessons. I hope we passed most of the tests. I hope very few repeat-classes will be required.
• Perspective, huh?
• So long, farewell, auf weidersen... adieu.

That's all. I'm holding onto a few of those hard-won lessons, but otherwise... I'm letting this year go, and tomorrow, I'm embracing the new one.

This post is in memory of Richard Donahue, Dr. Paul Schoen, Bryce McVety, Dorothy Childress, and several more friends' and neighbors' parents and grandparents whom I never had the pleasure of knowing; entertainers from Heath Ledger, George Carlin, and Paul Newman to the year's-end passages of Eartha Kitt & Harold Pinter; the victims of disasters both natural and incredibly unnatural in Myanmar, India, China, the Middle East, and throughout the world. As a whole, we survived 2008; but in this year, we lost some of our best and brightest. May all of their memories be a blessing as we move forward into the new year and all coming years.