2012: you taught me

2012, you taught me to move home to Massachusetts, to live in a dingy basement apartment, and to feel joy during my walk to work.  To love Armenian grocery shops.  To look forward to a long Saturday morning run, followed by a latte and a warm welcome home. 

You taught me that there is no greater feeling than that of safety (2011 might have taught me the opposite).

You taught me to wear a gold sequined mini dress to my cousin's pub in Connecticut, and to own it in the most carefree, blissful of ways. 

You taught me patience in working through Chris's long, miserable stint at unemployment, and you also taught me what a saint he is for putting up with me when I went through the same.  You taught me we're a team.  And when one half of the team is miserable, it's up to the other half to hang in there, put aside the bullshit, and smile...whatever it takes.  Even better, to do whatever it takes to make the gloomy half smile.  And not to do it because I have to do it, but because I want to do it.  To be there for him when he's sad...because he so much more so is there for me when I'm sad. 

On a beautiful day in June, you taught me to bear my soul in front of the people I love most in this world.  You wrapped me in your warmth, allowed me to feel every single second of that entire weekend, and to love - to truly love - the beauty of what I experienced.  To know in the depths of my soul just how valuable those precious days were.  To look around.  To breathe.  To laugh and to cry.  To be.  You taught me to be a wife.

You taught me to travel the coast in a 1986 camper, on a honeymoon of windblown hair and no air conditioning.  To eat lobster, to drink beer, to try mussels, to hike mountains, to swim in the sea.

You taught us to keep the biggest secret of our lives and then to share the biggest secret of our lives.  To feel our world change in an instant, and yet to know that we would be alright because it's us and we figure things out. 

You taught me to see the tiniest little fists on a screen in front of me and to feel my heart swell ten times its size with the purest form of love I have ever felt. 

You taught me to move into a house and to make it our home.  Our quirky, little, cozy home.  The place we will begin our life as a family not of two but of three and maybe more. 

And finally, 2012, you taught me - no, you reminded me - on a daily basis to look at the man beside me and smile because I know that we are in for one heck of a ride as we stumble through this world together.  To see and feel the beauty and the fortune of having him in my life.  To eagerly await all of the years to come, while somehow managing to embrace the present. 

2012, you were packed full of life changes and big moments, and for each and every one of them I feel truly blessed.  Cheers to an equally blessed 2013.