Help!  I'm drowning! 

I'm so tired of the rain!  It has been nearly non-stop for over a week now and yet another storm is moving in sometime during the night. 

So, it's the beginning of a new year.  And as with most new years, I've reflected back on the year I'm leaving.  Some of it was good and some of it was not so great.

The good was another year of health, family and the strengthening of a special friendship.

The not so great was losing my step dad. 

I usually have a difficult time discussing my step dad.  I had a love/hate relationship with him.  As a child, before he and my mom married, I knew him as "Uncle Bill", our neighbors brother.  At that time, I had the biggest crush on him and all the kids thought he was so cool.  Later, after they married and I was older, we didn't always see eye to eye.  He was harder on me than he was my other siblings.  Things that they were able to do and get away with, I could not.  Even my mom noticed and tried to allow me certain privleges.

I was not abused or anything like that, but I always thought it strange that he was harder on me.

In later years, it was discovered he had Manic Depression.  Of course, they only called it that because at that time, no one knew about bi-polar, but that is what he had.  To say he had become a total a$$hole was an understatement.  He became verbally abusive to my mom, he accused anyone and everyone of some bad deed and pretty much alienated most of the family before a certain doctor finally diagnosed him correctly and got him on the correct medication.

But what finally took his life was encephalitis.  It is sad that a once proud and very loving man became a paranoid, delusional jerk.  The last year of his life, he was the "Uncle Bill" that I remember as a child.  I thank God every day that He gave my mom that last year.

I still have a lot of mixed feelings about my step dad.  I do not hate him, but nor can I find it in me to say that I love him.  I respect the man he was and I do miss him a lot.

Now, as we prepare to sell our house and move closer to my mom, I only wish peace and happiness for her.  I hate that she is alone now and am anxious to get out there.

So, now as I look ahead to a new year, I have hope that this year will bring about new and exciting adventures.  A new home, a new school for the kids, new friends... hanging out with my mom and doing those fun mother/daughter things and chatting with a certain dear friend. 

Happy New Year!   And thanks for reading!