2009: A Personal Retrospective

Personally, I am glad that 2009 has not become the past. It was a year of both good and bad for me, although the bad seemed to generally far out weigh the good. Casting a pall over most of the year were skirmishes in the divorce war that pushed me into two major melt down, a suicide attempt and a move back to meds and therapy after a brief hospital stay. Hand in glove with that nightmare has been the continuing financial struggle of keeping my firm afloat in a period where the real estate market has never really recovered and commercial transactions have been fewer in number because banks generally are not lending. But for my LGBT clients and my Hindu and Moroccan clients, things would have been most grim. Of course the other disaster was the flooding of the home I share with the boyfriend last month in the severe November northeaster that continues to have us camping out on the second floor of the house while we continue to get the insurance adjustment completed. Adding to the sense of malaise has been my estrangement from my two older children. The success of anti-gay forces in Vermont in repealing marriage equality likewise created a wide negative energy for many LGBT Americans, myself included.

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On the positive side of the ledger, the boyfriend took me to Key West for the first time last January, this blog was named one of the top 100 LGBT blogs by the UK's Lesbian & Gay Foundation back in June, I moved in with the boyfriend in April, both our families have embraced our relationship, I continue to have a good relationship with my youngest daughter (who currently is working for me), the ELCA Churchwide Assembly voted to permit partnered gay clergy, we had an amazing experience at the National Equality March, including having an opportunity to talk with Dustin Lance Black and Julian Bond, and my circle of friends within the local LGBT community has continued to expand.

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Throughout all of the good and the bad, this blog continued to provide me with an invaluable source of release and friendship from readers literally around the globe. I am glad 2009 is over and hope that 2010 will have fewer negatives and more positives on the financial front. I will continue my activism and discuss things as I see them. I am most thankful for my loyal readers and hope you will stick with me as I make my way through 2010. Often, you are much more of a life line than you will ever know. I likewise continue to be thankful to have the boyfriend - a/k/a "Martha Stewart" - in my life. He's been Heaven sent and is a true angel - even when in bossy mode, :)