This year started at 12:00:01 on January 1st and the world was turning. Two weeks later my father died.
And though I was devastated, in a way that felt violent and deliberate, it kept turning.
Then, we went skiing and the world kept turning. One of my close colleagues died. The world kept turning. We were married, I tried to elongate every moment and drop of joy in every last one of my nerve endings, because the world kept turning.
We celebrated weddings, births, and birthdays - near and far - and the world kept turning.
Some nights, when I was lucky, I talked to Pops in my dreams. And the world kept turning. When we visited my family in India, the world kept turning. The world was turning before, during, and after, I ran a half marathon.
When I made mistakes managing projects at work the world kept turning, too. Riley became part of our family and the world continued to turn just the same as when another colleague from work was murdered unexpectedly one night.
At Thanksgiving, Christmas, and every day between, before, and after- when we laughed, cried, stubbed toes, kissed, raised glasses, napped, walked along the river, hugged, voted, cooked, and read books. Even when we sat still and quietly the world turned.
In our new home, the world will turn.
I feel a strange mix of guilt and relief saying this, but when Papa died I felt for the first time it was really, honestly, possible that the world would stop spinning. But thanks to God, it didn't. As much as the only constant in life is change, I find it comforting that the world still turns - with or without us, and every living thing we've ever known - no matter what happens.
We don't have to concern ourselves with the Atlassian task of keeping the world turning, thank God. All we have to do is keep this world of ours a nice place for our children and grandchildren, and teach them to take care of it when we're gone.
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