It's been 4 years since my father died, 4 long years. He was supposed to go into the hospital, get fixed up again and come home to us. If I had known that day would be my last, that he'd never come home again, I would have told him I loved him so much, that all those years I responded to his love you's with a smart ass I know reply, that I did love him, my teenage self just wouldn't let me tell him. I would have loved him better. He was supposed to just come home and he left me instead, he just left without a chance to say goodbye. How is that fair in any way?

I'm hoping that 2017 will be a better year for us, one with a new job for Scott soon, improved health for me, and continued growth and learning for my incredibly intelligent daughter. I can feel a big change coming, it's just around the corner, I know it. Good things will happen, with God all things are possible.

I'm glad no one can see me as I write this, because then you might see my red rimmed, swollen from crying eyes, and the fakeness behind my positive bravado. I'm scared, Scott's unemployment runs out soon and there is no way we'd survive on my meager disability check. I'm scared, and I hate when my faith is shaken like this, when I start to feel like God has forgotten all about me. I feel like a tiny rowboat out in the middle of an angry storm on the sea, and there is no land or light in sight. I'm scared, without better medical coverage my lupus will flare again, and that means more damage to my already damaged body. I'm scared, scared that, that maybe there is no Higher Power out there looking out for me, that my life has been nothing but good luck so far and it's run out. I feel like one of those woman who sit at a slot machine all day hoping my luck will change and instead of losing, I'll win my money back and lots more. But let's be honest? How many times have you seen a big win? Maybe my big win was beating cancer and it's all downhill from here. Is this the beginning of the end, is this where it all unravels slowly until I can't take it anymore?

It's dark in my head tonight, and I can't seem to find the flashlight. I know I'll get some sleep and be ok in the morning, but the darkness scares me. It's lonely, and I'm afraid that someday it may turn out to be that I've been standing on the edge of an abyss and one false step and everything comes undone. I don't want to be lost forever. 

I really planned on coming on here tonight and being upbeat, positive and yay it's a new year. But then I thought of daddy and the darkness crept in and seems to have a firm hold for the evening.  Just remember dear friends, as my daughter so kindly reminded me earlier, I am strong, and I will fight the darkness, because I don't want to lose myself, all the work I've done to get to where I am. I am strong, and I'll wake in the morning, and hopefully it'll be to light.