These Last 10 Years

New Year's Eve 2009 seems like a lifetime away.

Before Domani was born. 

Before Joe's diagnosis. 

Before single parenthood. 

Before running a marathon. 

Before the Afghan Whigs reunion. 

Before the big 4-0.

Before running for school board. 

Before this blog. 

As the enormity of the last decade settled in with me today I had a sudden, overwhelming fear that the stroke of midnight means I am leaving Joe behind. A decade that had started with him and so many hopes and dreams is ending without him. It's not what I had imagined and it sucks.

But, as I thought back over the past ten years I realized that for all of the heartache there has also been incredible joy. It sucks that Joe isn't here with us to enjoy life as it is now, but he is carried with us into this next decade in some special ways - in baseball, in music, in the home we created together, and most importantly in Domani.

The truth is that this past year especially has been a good one.

I read more books than I have in a long time.

I saw some of my favorite bands in concert and even got to a show with my sisters.

I replaced actual marathons with some of the Netflix variety and even managed to peel myself away long enough to do another Spartan race.

I won another kind of race, being elected to our community's school board by only 14 votes.

Domani did his first (& second) Spartan races and just went with me to his first Star Wars movie in the theater.

Domani and I watched Pete Alonso break the rookie single season homerun record from our seats at Citifield.

We perfected our guacamole and experimented with making different foods together.

He started playing Little League and decided he loves rollerblading.

We got to see the Mets play in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Kansas City and visited plenty of museums and other sites.

Before the end of the next decade, Domani will be driving and I will have celebrated my 50th birthday. Both of those things feel overwhelming right now, but if there is one thing I have learned over the last 10 years it's to take each thing one step at a time. So, that's what we will do and we will carry Joe forward with us as we go.

My 2019 "Top Nine"