2011 Has Been An Interesting Year--Happy New Year Everybody! and Three Faces of Bob

2011 has been an interesting year, full of change and promise.  I hope yours has been what you hoped for in 2010 and I hope 2012 is equally rich, in pleasure and in (the inevitable) pain.  It's all good.  Certainly better than the six-feet-under alternative.

On December 31, 2010, just 12 months ago, I was still depressed, although not thinking so much of killing myself, as I had been from September, 2010 through early December.  By mid-January, 2011, I began the upward ascent, out of the darkness.   I probably climbed a bit too high in early Spring, 2011, began to make big changes in my life which sustained the high for many months.  I'm just now beginning to regain a more moderate position, although I haven't yet hit the sweet spot, the Aristotelian mean.  But I'm getting there, and people in my life are noticing the change as I move towards the center, and they're liking it.  I am too.  I can still turn on the high-wire energy force when I want to, but I'm learning how to reign it in when I need to, for the sake of myself but even more for the people in my life who want the best for me, but also for them.

To change one's life, radically, requires lots of hard work, risk-taking, and fine-tuning.  What an exciting ride it's been, and I expect it will continue to be.

Here are three photos I took this afternoon of myself, just so I can remember what the surface of me looked liked on December 31, 2011.  Who knows what ravages time will take on our appearances, and our inner lives.