2014 - A Year of Living Dangerously?

Well, what do you do with a title like that?  
I have to say, this year has been so full of fast-paced insanity and slow-paced waiting...so many things have happened, changed, not happened....seems like nothing was ever what it started out to be.  
And what would make that dangerous, you ask?  Well, for a suicide survivor, danger is always there.  Because we make the conscious decision to stay in this world and find out what happens in a given situation, or not.  Every day, all the time!  That's just how it is, at least how its been for me.  
I think back to the first part of this year, when I was surrounded by my 'kids' and trying to figure out what I should do with my life....watching each of them, in turn, make life-altering decisions....while I felt stuck with a life I didn't want....a marriage I couldn't fit into anymore....a project (the farm and the idea of farming as a way of living) I didn't really start or finish, yet worked my ass off to keep going until I couldn't see the point any longer....friends that I could and couldn't count on....a love that I tried my best to let go of and found out that this was just not something I could stand to live without....and on and on....
I know that it was a year of feeling so damned defeated over and over again.  There were many dark times.  Yet it was also a year of finding myself, figuring out why I didn't die, what the Universe really had in store for me, and realizing that I had the power and the choice to do and be who I am....and the right to live the life I wanted for myself, as opposed to staying in a stagnant pretense of a marriage, doing work that I didn't want to do, etc.  
In the end, I have found peace and joy.  I see hope on the horizon and feel it in my heart. I have journeyed internally and externally along my true path, and lived to tell about it.  I have faced demons literally and metaphorically and come through a stronger, more confident person.  I have had relationships fall away and relationships be renewed and rebuilt.  
I am happy.  Tomorrow could bring anything, but it won't change the fact that I'm happy.  I realize that being happy is really what makes life worth living.  I also realize that it can be a very unpopular thing....there are many people that thrive on other people's unhappiness....that don't know how to be happy for someone, even someone they care deeply about, when that someone has taken that leap of faith and found happiness and peace.  Maybe they are afraid to do it for themselves and so they don't really like to see someone else find what they can't seem to, no matter how hard they try. I can't say...I am not that kind of person.  
But I have seen, and really paid attention to it this year, that there are so many unhappy people....looking for answers but unable to find what they seek.  They are living dangerously, I think.  I realize that there are so many who are on the brink of depression, or already there, and who may decide that life is no longer worth living.  Dangerous....at least from where I sit.  Maybe because I've been there, even as recently as a month ago or so, and I know exactly how it can turn from feeling bad to just being ready to give up.  I feel lucky, believe it or not, that I have lived and died and lived again, and that I know the signs, have the red flags in place, recognize the beginnings of dissociation from what is, and can steer myself through the darkness that comes unbidden until I find something positive to grasp to get me back into the light.  
Has this been a year of living dangerously?  Absolutely....and it seems that it has been this way for pretty much everyone that I know....in some way or another.  This year's instability, for lack of a better description, has put many people in situations that may have been over their head....because everything seems to have been magnified; and every change, of which their were many, was a BIG one.  It has not been a subtle year, that's for sure.  
I'm hopeful that we have all gotten through 2014 fairly unscathed.  I think many people will carry the scars from such a volatile succession of changes, and I hope that as they look at those scars they will be reminded of the fortitude that they found within themselves to deal with such volatility and uncertainty as we have all gone through in these past 12 months.  I hope that we can see that we are all stronger and better for what we've endured, and that the changes to our lives have been necessary if we are to survive in this crazy world.  Sometimes living dangerously is just the way it is....and its better than not living, literally or metaphorically....living through 'dangerous' times may seem dire at the time; but as I look back, I can see that the changes and choices and chances which seemed so dangerous and scary and sometimes downright impossible have all ended up okay, and have left me with scars that I can look at and smile at, and be glad that I experienced the 'danger', because I also experienced the 'living', and I wouldn't trade that for anything.  
I hope this year's end brings peace to you, as it has to me....and that you can see the gifts, the good parts, and take those forward into the year ahead....namaste....