Finalizing, organizing, realizing.

This time of year always brings about a wave of renewal, and also a time of reflection upon the past 12 months. What are my accomplishments, where have I been, and where am I headed? The paths that I choose to follow are of my own design and distinction. I am wondering at this moment in time if I should be giving up my very much loved group that I coordinate every week. I am always on the verge of looking for something else, something a little bit more than a once a week group, although I am caught up in the benefit that I see in being part of such a group. But my question to myself this week, is the very group that I love very much the one thing that is holding me back from something more that I could be doing, and I haven't given myself the chance to explore? I would hate to take that step and leave this remarkable group of people behind, but then if I do not leave I may never find the right path either. I think that I should at least try.

In other moments of clarity and realization of life as it happens:

My sister and I were out together today... and we heard a sound that was so profound in both our minds, that it set me fleeing in the opposite direction. The sound followed, and eventually caught up to both of us. It was the sound of an autistic boy communicating either his love or his disdain to his mother. His bellow pulled tightly at mine and especially my sisters heart strings, and being the sensitive fools that we are, both burst into tears in Walmart. My sisters boy is autistic, but if there are things to be continually thankful for in life, her son is on the high functioning end of the spectrum. Where he complains about people not following rules, and asks mathematical questions that would put a Harvard graduate to shame. Who requests more information on the touring conditions in an automobile in the year 1904, and knows the make and model of almost every car built since the invention of the four wheeled beast, and that he doesn't really care if he is still pulling up his pants when he leaves the bathroom, or points his middle finger at you when asking big bold questions about the sky and universe beyond, but these are all things that we need to be thankful for, which of course made us both cry when the bellowing boy walked by.