2016. The year that drug on and on and on. The year I felt confused, disconnected and bewildered. It was unnerving to be truthful. To feel so addled for most of the year. I almost felt….well, lost is the best way I can describe it.
It didn’t start out that way. I had planned to write, paint and quilt and build things….none of that happened. I just couldn’t get myself together. I couldn’t seem to finish anything I started. I was all over the place…lost.
While the year progressed I became more frustrated with the things happening in the world…I got caught in an eddy of negativity …a whirlpool of anger at what I saw as the stupidity of people accepting what was going on around them, and worse…participating in it…the indignation that I felt didn’t seem to be common place and it frightened me.
And then I stepped back, looking in the mirror. What was happening to me, I wondered…often aloud. When did I become so distracted that my own life was becoming a mess?
As the year wore on, and I became more aware of what had been happening, I knew the answer. I had lost my concentration, my centre of gravity so to speak. 
I am a believer in like attracts like, so of course the more disarmed I became, the more of that confusion and frustration I attracted. Even writing this….I find it difficult to get the words to come.
As I began to think about my plans for 2017, I knew I couldn’t start the year in the same frame of mind I had been in for most of 2016. I am generally a very organized, methodical person. I needed help.
I went back to something that my friend Dana had introduced me to a few years ago. Choosing one word to be sort of your north star during the coming year. The guiding light of your life as it were. I had done this for a few years before, but Dana introduced the concept of formalizing it…focusing on choosing that one word.
As I thought about it, it was evident that once again, the word chose me. FOCUS. That is my word for 2017. I had lost my focus in 2016. It shan’t happen again. This year I have help. You see we lost Dana on Christmas Eve, 2016. But we only lost her on this plain. I feel her presence as I end this blog post…and truly, as I type these last lines, I feel more focused than I did writing this whole thing. I know that going forward into this new year, I have regained my FOCUS…
offthecuffbyplnear 
Hi Peggy – Just to let you know that I am feeling now, much the way you felt for most of last year. I’m fighting it, and trying to move on, but I can certainly relate. Life is good and most people are good. We just have to keep remembering that. I’m sorry you have lost the earthly presence of your friend, but I’m sure she will continue to inspire and guide you. I wish you well. – Margaret
Thanks Margaret… keep fighting it!! I really felt like someone put me in the blender on high… not sorry to close the door on 2016…even though it had some good moments too. XO