Happy New Year: Google + made me cry

I've never been big on lavish New Years celebrations. When I was young, and liked to pretend I was more seasoned than my years, I was fond of this one quote (attributed to Frank Sinatra, I think?): New Years Eve is for amateurs. I guess I took it to mean that you only got worked up about stuff like that if you were too naive to really know how to live your life the other 364 days of the year. You don't need an excuse (least of all one born of chronology) for a party.

Later on, the very idea that a flip of the calendar could be anything other than a random date change began to feel like yet another bitter joke in life's plan for us. Losing S was (and continues to be) the most difficult, painful thing I have ever experienced. I remember December 31st, 2010, after surviving our first holidays as childless parents, H and I looking at each other with determination as we stated: this year will be our year. Things have to get better. It wasn't and they didn't. But in each year that followed, we dutifully repeated the mantra while our determination became more grim and our conviction more shaky. The closing weeks of 2011 - during which we continued to mourn, and adjust to that feeling of being invisible in a world that refused to acknowledge our son or the pain that came with our childless status - brought our second pregnancy loss. 2012 brought serious illness for H, months of testing that confirmed (without explanation) our subfertile status thankyouverymuch, a surprise conception in August followed with a by-then unsurprising miscarriage a week later, and by year's end, the darkest, most all-consuming depression I have ever experienced.

Of course there were lots of happier moments in there too; laughter and adventure and flickers of hope. It's just that in the context of those years, none of that stands out in memory as starkly as the sea of crap through which we waded for so long. And then, while attempting to pull myself up for air, I sat down and wrote this. That simple act of writing not only led me to all of you - all your support and encouragement and compassion and tears and anger and humour and understanding - but helped me to see those flickers of hope for what they were, to somehow more easily embrace them when they came along.

And it occurs to me that this is what movement, healing, change, growth are all about; a series of tiny things, none of which seem particularly momentous at the time (and almost certainly accompanied by laughter and tears in equal measure), that once accumulated can lead us to the most profound realizations and discoveries. Good or bad, you never know what's around the next corner. And I for one can think of no better reason for a party, whatever form that takes. Maybe it's quiet contemplation. Maybe it's filled with angst and red wine and self-soothing. Maybe it's more conventionally recognizable as a party, time spent laughing with the kind of family we all long to have and hold.

But the strength and hope and perseverance and giving-the-middle-finger to an unfair, indifferent universe? It's all worth celebrating.

************************

And that brings me to Google +.

Urging me to click on the highlighted little notification button when I logged onto blogger today, Google + announced that, thanks to their annoyingly titled new feature Auto Awesome, they had a gift waiting for me.

(As an aside, I'm pretty hopeless when it comes to techy stuff. I don't really have a clue what the purpose of Google + actually is. If you've ever 'added me to your circle' on Google + and I haven't reciprocated, it's because a) I don't know how and b) even if I did, I wouldn't see the point. I'm not being rude, I swear! I want to be friends! I am just not at all social media-y. I actually kind of loathe that stuff. There is nothing you can say to convince me that it's not kind of...well, superficial and narcissistic, instead of the cure for all ills of postmodern ennui from which we suffer, as it is too often touted to be. And yes, I am fully aware of the irony of my recording that statement on a blog. I never claimed to be consistent.)

Anyway, it seems Auto Awesome was so sweet as to prepare a 'personalized' 2013 Movie! for me, based on all the albums I have (apparently? I'm not techy, remember?) created while keeping this here blog.

Obnoxious, intrusive, commercial, impersonal, marketing ploy, right?

Right. Except that it made me cry.

It started off with those beautiful shots of the snowy day I sat down to start this blog. It continued on to that whimsical memory tree I found one day while practicing laughter yoga and missing my son, then went on to some of the photos we took while marking his third birthday. It threw in several lovely slides of our glorious holiday, as well as the disappointment that followed. A beautiful hike which made me again feel close to S, an impromptu, pre-new-job trip to France, a hot, boozy, day of dancing at Notting Hill Carnival. Next was a shot of the candles lit to mark Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day and all the tiny lives that never got to live. And the slideshow concluded (as though Auto Awesome somehow knew what it was looking at?), with the most amazing sight we've seen all year for a very very long time: that little grey blob, beating, growing, living. (Not that we dared hope we'd get this far at the time.) And then, blame pregnancy hormones I teared up.

And there you have it. Happy/sad/scary/fun all mixed up messily together. A year in the life, as well as in this blog.

Thanks for being here, through it all.