As the year draws to a close I have reflected on highs and lows. My world and the world around me seem to have been punctuated with turbulent times. There has been change, discord, misery, murder and natural disaster. There have been moments of intense grief and emotional carnage. If I were to list the things that happened both personally and nationally I could be here until 2012!
Out of it all there have been amazing moments of hope and huge examples of compassion for others. Many of the people that have shown courage and determination in the face of extreme trauma I have never met and am unlikely to do so. People like PC Rathband, who survived a horrific gun attack by a raving lunatic, the rescuers who went out to Haiti and plucked old and young from the maelstrom of floods and gave them hope, the people who built the memorial garden for Alan Wood, the people of Cumbria whose communal misery was witnessed and projected into the public domain by the worlds’ media and the Chilean Miner’s who may have suspected they would never see the light of day again. All these events and people formed the year that was 2010 and have provided some form of inspriatation to me throughout the year.
These traumas have drawn people together, whether by design or out of necessity. My own problems are insignificant in the grand scale of things and to all those people I don’t know, but who continue to provide inspiration in people they have never met, Thank You. To those I do know and who have held me up physically and emotionally whilst my brain thrashed around in its own sea of inadequacy this year a heartfelt Thanks. I hope, one day, I am able to repay your kindness and compassion. In the meantime I wish all my friends an absolute corker of a year in 2011 and let’s kick the ass of 2010 into touch with a bloody large Gin and Tonic to help us on our way.
